POL CLS AthenianDemocracy--ExperimentForAges GARLADRob

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Athenian Democracy
Athenian Democracy
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An Experiment for the Ages
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Course Guidebook
—The Los Angeles Times
“A serious force in American education.” Professor Robert Garland

—The Wall Street Journal Colgate University
Robert Garland is the Roy D. and Margaret B. Wooster

Professor of the Classics at Colgate University. He obtained
his Ph.D. in Ancient History from University College London.
Professor Garland’s research focuses on the social, religious,
political, and cultural history of Greece and Rome. He has
written 13 books, including Athens Burning: The Persian
Invasion of Greece and the Evacuation of Attica. Professor
Garland is a former Fulbright Scholar, and his expertise has
been featured in the History Channel’s The True Story of Troy.
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The Teaching Company.
Robert Garland, Ph.D.
ROY D. AND MARGARET B. WOOSTER PROFESSOR OF THE CLASSICS
COLGATE UNIVERSITY
R obert Garland is the Roy D. and Margaret B. Wooster Professor of

the Classics at Colgate University, where he served for 13 years as
chair of the Department of the Classics and was director of the Division
of the Humanities. He received his B.A. in Classics from The University of
Manchester, where he graduated with first class honours. He obtained his
M.A. in Classics from McMaster University and his Ph.D. in Ancient History
from University College London.
Professor Garland was the recipient of the George Grote Prize in Ancient
History from the Institute of Classical Studies. He was also a Fulbright
Scholar and fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC
and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He
Athenian Democracy: An Experiment for the Ages | i

has taught at the University of Reading, the University of London, Keele
University, and the University of Maryland at College Park. He also was the
Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professor at the University of Bristol. In addition
to his 28 years of teaching classics at Colgate University, Professor Garland
has taught English and drama to secondary school students and lectured at
universities throughout Britain and at the British School at Athens.
Professor Garland’s research focuses on the social, religious, political, and

cultural history of both Greece and Rome. He has written 13 books and many
articles in both academic and popular journals. His books include The Greek
Way of Death (which has been translated into Japanese); The Piraeus: From
the Fifth to the First Century B.C.; The Greek Way of Life: From Conception
to Old Age; Introducing New Gods: The Politics of Athenian Religion; Religion
and the Greeks (which has been translated into Greek); The Eye of the
Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the Graeco-Roman World; Daily Life of
the Ancient Greeks (which has been translated into Greek); Surviving Greek
Tragedy; Julius Caesar; Celebrity in Antiquity: From Media Tarts to Tabloid
Queens; Hannibal (which has been translated into German); Wandering
Greeks: The Ancient Greek Diaspora from the Age of Homer to the Death of
Alexander the Great; and Athens Burning: The Persian Invasion of Greece
and the Evacuation of Attica. His expertise has been featured in the History
Channel’s The True Story of Troy, and he often has served as a consultant for
educational film companies.
Professor Garland’s other Great Courses are Greece and Rome: An

Integrated History of the Ancient Mediterranean; The Other Side of History:
Daily Life in the Ancient World; and Living History: Experiencing Great Events
of the Ancient and Medieval Worlds. ■
ii | Professor Biography
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
Professor Biography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
Course Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
LECTURE GUIDES
LECTURE 1
Why Athenian Democracy Matters��4
LECTURE 2
The Origins of Greek Democracy��12
LECTURE 3
Solon: The Father of Democracy?��19
LECTURE 4
Cleisthenes the Innovator��27
LECTURE 5
The Nearly Bloodless Coup��34
LECTURE 6
Democracy at War��40
Athenian Democracy: An Experiment for the Ages | iii

LECTURE 7
The Popular Assembly��47
LECTURE 8
The Council and the Magistrates��54
LECTURE 9
The Citizens of Athens��60
LECTURE 10
“The Empire You Hold Is a Tyranny”��67
LECTURE 11
The Age of Pericles��74
LECTURE 12
Public Speaking in Athens��81
LECTURE 13
Pericles’s Funeral Speech��86
LECTURE 14
Democracy under Duress��93
LECTURE 15
The Culture of Athenian Democracy��99
LECTURE 16
Political Leadership in Athens��106
iv | Table of Contents
LECTURE 17
The Brutality of Athenian Democracy�� 111
LECTURE 18
Athenian Defeat in Sicily�� 118
LECTURE 19
Suspension, Restoration, and Termination��124
LECTURE 20
The Democratic Theater��132
LECTURE 21
Law and Order under Democracy��140
LECTURE 22
Ancient Critics of Athenian Democracy��146
LECTURE 23
Post-Athenian Democracies��153
LECTURE 24
Democracy Today, Democracy Tomorrow��162
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Image Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Athenian Democracy: An Experiment for the Ages | v

Athenian
Democracy
An Experiment for the Ages
T he democratic revolution that Athens underwent in the 5th century BC

was the boldest ever undertaken in human political history. Unlike the
American system of government, under which representatives are elected
to Congress, the Athenian state invested total faith in the ordinary man (not
woman), who was empowered to vote directly on questions of the utmost
importance without any intermediary elected to represent his interests.
This meant that every citizen had the right to speak in the Assembly and vote
on such momentous decisions as whether to go to war or conclude a treaty.
It was what scholars call a radical democracy. It didn’t flinch in its conviction
that every citizen was equal to every other in having the ability, and thus the
inalienable right, to determine the policy of the state.
In addition to political equality, the other pillar upon which Athenian democracy
was founded was trial by jury. This established the principal upheld in the
American court system today that the accused has the right to face his or her
accuser and be tried by a jury of his or her peers.
This course will begin by tracing the roots of Greek democracy in the poems
of Homer and explore its evolution in Athens over the course of its 300-year
lifetime. We will encounter some of the most fascinating names in Greek
history, including Solon, Cleisthenes, Pericles, Alcibiades, Socrates, Plato,
and Aristotle.
Athenian Democracy: An Experiment for the Ages | 1

Throughout the course, we will also trace its echo in the American system
of government and that of others elsewhere. We will also identify the
reemergence of democracy in Europe over 1,000 years after the demise of
the Athenian system. Particular attention will be paid to the era of Athenian
history known as the Periclean age, which saw an outpouring of cultural
achievement in the visual arts and in literature.
Athens’s achievement in this period is all the more remarkable in light

of the fact that no contemporary writer or thinker had a kind word to say
about democracy, on the grounds that it placed unmerited and dangerous
confidence in the ignorant and unruly masses—a view of democracy that
survives to this day in certain parts of the world.
At the heart of Athenian democracy lie two profound contradictions, however.

The first is that Athens was, like almost every other ancient society of which
we have record, a slave society. This raises the uncomfortable question
as to what extent such a bold and heroic experiment could have come to
pass without the labors of slaves, since citizens required leisure to be able
to discharge their political and military duties. Every citizen was expected to
make himself available for public office if appointed by lot and required to
serve regularly in the army.
The second contradiction is that Athens in the 5th century wielded absolute
power over a large maritime empire, from whose members Athens exacted
tribute. It was this tribute that enabled Athens to achieve cultural prominence.
The course will give full attention to this darker side of Athenian democracy
and investigate to what degree, if at all, it should be upheld as a humane
and civilizing institution, a question of equal relevance to modern democratic
systems of government.
Of particular note in this regard is the trial and execution of its most celebrated
critic, the philosopher Socrates, which took place in the aftermath to Athens’s
defeat in the Peloponnesian War. We will conclude with an evaluation of
democracy in the contemporary world and assess its vitality today.
2 | Scope
Though the radical democracy of the Athenians was very different from
modern, Western representative democracy in many specifics, its opposition
to tyrannical oppression by either a clique or a single individual who wields
unconstitutional power is an indelible characteristic of both systems. Though
there is no direct line of descent from Athens’s experiment with democracy to
modern Western representative government, Athenian democracy justifiably
continues to fascinate, amaze, and inspire all those who are interested in
political history and theory. ■

1
Why Athenian
Democracy Matters
T he system of government that the Athenians

set up over 2,500 years ago was in some
sense an anticipation of modern democracies.
The political ideal first appeared on the Greek
mainland in the city-state of Athens, comprising
perhaps 300,000 people, of whom between 30,000
to 50,000 were citizens. Athenian democracy has
helped to inform discussions about America and
other democracies down to the present day.
ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY CHARACTERISTICS
❖❖ Athenian democracy had both a political and a legal base. The

political base was the right of direct participation in the decision-
making process. The legal base was equality before the law and
the right to be judged by a jury of one’s peers. These were the twin
pillars of Athenian democracy.
❖❖ Athenian democracy invested confidence in the ordinary, unqualified,

and inexperienced male. As the Swiss historian Kurt Raaflaub
writes, “No [city-state] had ever dared to give all its citizens equal
political rights, regardless of their descent, wealth, social standing,
education, personal qualities, and any other factors that usually
determined status in a community.” The corollary is that no other
people have ever been so politicized over such a long period.
❖❖ The Athenians didn’t believe in redistribution of wealth. Their

democracy wasn’t anti-wealth or anti-aristocracy. However, there
was some state ownership, as there still is in the United States. For
instance, the Demos (the Athenian citizen body) owned Athens’s
very lucrative silver mines. Anyone who wished to mine there had to
bid for the right to do so and pay the state the money he bid.
Athena

Athens
❖❖ Athenian democracy featured a belief in the common good. The

individual was in the service of the state to a degree that would be
unacceptable to any modern democracy.
❖❖ Athens featured many outlets for competiveness. For example,

there was the Assembly, attended by all citizens, where the speakers
competed with one another. There were the so-called liturgies, where
the wealthy competed with the wealthy in giving generously in ways
that benefited the state. There were also dramatic competitions,
where playwrights competed with each other for first prize, to name
but three venues.
❖❖ Athens had a strong emphasis on religion. The Athenian Demos

was a religious body. It funded a number of festivals. Athens itself
was named for the goddess Athena.
6 | Lecture 1 v Why Athenian Democracy Matters

❖❖ Democracy in Athens was the result of a process of evolution that
took place over the course of nearly 300 years, from the beginning
of the 6th century BC to the late 4th century BC. This evolution was
largely nonviolent. Democracy was continuing to evolve right up
until the moment when it was snuffed out.
❖❖ The experiment was not ideologically driven. People didn’t get on

bandwagons touting democracy in preference to other forms of
government. In fact, aristocrats played the major role in its advancement
by coopting the masses largely to further their own interests.
KEY TERMS
❖❖ The word democracy is by no means a straightforward term. It implies

lots of things: participation in government, freedom of expression,
liberty, civil rights, a civil society, equality, and self-determination.

❖❖ The word first appeared in English in 1784, when it is used in a
derogatory sense, though the French word démocratie was already
around in the mid-16th century. The adjective democratic was
appropriated by the Democratic Party, which was established in
the 1820s under Andrew Jackson. It had previously been used by
Jefferson’s Republican Party in 1798, the full title of which was the
Democratic Republican Party.
❖❖ The Greek word dêmokratia, which means “people power,” is equally

unstraightforward. That’s partly because dêmos, the first part of
the word, can mean two very different things. It can mean either
“the people as a whole” or “the majority.” The Athenian statesman
Pericles offers this definition of democracy in the speech he delivers
over the war dead: “Our constitution is called a dêmokratia because
its administration is in the hands of the many, not of the few.”
ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY’S CENTRAL PARADOX
❖❖ From a modern perspective, Athenian democracy featured three

prominent anomalies. First, Athens was a slave society. That raises
a very big question: Could Athens have functioned as a democracy
if it weren’t for its slaves? This was a society that promoted the idea
of freedom and equality, but also believed that it was acceptable to
enslave fellow humans.
❖❖ The second anomaly is that women had no political or legal identity.

They couldn’t participate in the running of the state, they were not
permitted to possess sizeable wealth in their own name, and they
couldn’t represent themselves in court.
❖❖ Third, the Athenians ran an empire that subjugated their fellow

Greeks. The Athenians taxed them, but more devastatingly, the
Athenians massacred them if they refused to obey.
SOURCES
❖❖ No ancient democratic theorist has left us an explanation of what

Athenian democracy sought to achieve. The Athenian democracy

didn’t produce anyone like the Swiss-born French philosopher Jean-
Jacques Rousseau, author of The Social Contract, or the English
philosopher John Stuart Mill, author of On Liberty.
❖❖ One of our earliest sources is Solon, a political, economic, and

social reformer, who wrote poetry describing in vague terms his
agenda at the very beginning of the 6th century BC. Solon provides
us with a small window into Athens’s first steps toward becoming
a democracy.
❖❖ Next was Herodotus, a historian from Halicarnassus in modern-day

Turkey, who wrote in the 430s and 420s about the Greco-Persian
Wars. Herodotus resided for a time in Athens, and he describes
the democratic reforms associated with the Athenian politician
Cleisthenes at the end of the 6th century.
❖❖ Another important source was Thucydides, often regarded as the

father of history as a social science. He rejected the belief that
human affairs were caused by divine intervention, as his great
predecessor Herodotus had done. He covers the 460s and 450s
BC very briefly and says nothing about the constitutional changes
that took place at that time, but he does show democracy in action.
❖❖ When Thucydides’s account breaks off in 411, it’s picked up by a

historian and mercenary officer called Xenophon. He wrote a work
called the Hellênika, the title of which translates to “Greek events.”
The Hellênika continues down to the year 362.
❖❖ There’s also a work called The Old Oligarch, a political pamphlet

that pretends to justify and praise Athenian democracy by describing
how it has been set up to serve the interests of the Demos. It’s
clear that the author actually detests the Demos and is being heavily
ironic. It probably belongs to the late 5th century BC.
❖❖ Next, there’s the Constitution of the Athenians, the Athenaiôn Politeia,

written in the 320s. The author was probably a pupil of Aristotle. The
first part of the book provides a history of Athenian democracy and
the second provides a description of how it operated in latter part of
the 4th century. Parts of it are useful, but some parts are not.

❖❖ Another source is the body of work called Old Comedy, specifically
11 plays by the comic dramatist Aristophanes. Old Comedy refers
to comedies that were written in the last decades of the 5th century
BC and the first decades of the 4th century BC. Aristophanes often
provides us with insights into how democracy operated as well with
political attitudes of the day because his plays are all set in the present.
❖❖ Other sources include political speeches,

archaeological records, and numismatics—
the study of coins. Athenian democracy
depended on the wide circulation of
coins. These coins, the so-called owls,
came to be the widest distributed coins
throughout the Greek world. They
depict an owl on one side and the head
of Athena on the other side. The owl was
a symbol of Athena, goddess of female
wisdom as well as of war.
CONTRASTS WITH MODERN WESTERN DEMOCRACY
❖❖ Athenian democracy has some notable contrasts with modern

Western democracy. First, Athenian democracy was what we call
direct or participatory. That is to say, all citizens participated in the
political process, though in actual fact, that only amounted to 10 to
20 percent of the total population. Western liberal democracies, by
contrast, are representative.
❖❖ Second, there was no party system. There were only factions. There
were also loose interest groups, such as city dwellers versus country
dwellers or the wealthy versus the poor.
❖❖ Third, there was no government and opposition. This meant every

vote was in effect a referendum, and that people couldn’t rely on
party discipline to keep others in line.
❖❖ Fourth, there were no professional politicians. There were just men

who got up to speak in the Assembly and whose ascendancy lasted
for period of time.

❖❖ Fifth, there was no commander in chief. There was a board of 10
generals, all of equal rank and all in competition, even on the field
of battle.
❖❖ Sixth, there was no accountability in the Assembly. If a person

stood up and proposed something, and it turned out to be the
worst possible suggestion, they wouldn’t be charged because the
Assembly had voted on it and the Assembly took responsibility.
❖❖ Seventh, there were no select committees and no reliance on

expertise, except for the generalship (which was decided by popular
vote). There were no qualifications needed for any office. This
represented an astounding faith in the everyman.
❖❖ Lastly, Athenian democracy was very hard work. Being a citizen was
a full-time job. People didn’t just have to attend the Assembly; they
also had to serve on a council for a year at a time, and there was
compulsory military service.
Suggested Reading
Carey, Democracy in Classical Athens.
Finley, Democracy Ancient and Modern.
Questions to Consider
1. What should be the essential features of any democracy?
2. Can democracy be defined?

2
The Origins of Greek
Democracy
A thens wasn’t the only polis or city-state

that had a democracy. There were around
1,000 poleis in the Greek-speaking world, and
perhaps as many as half were democracies.
The other preferred system of government was
oligarchy, rule by the few. In addition to democracy
and oligarchy, the Greek world knew two other
systems of government: tyranny and kingship.
Setting those other systems aside, this lecture
takes a look at early evidence of democracy in the
Greek world.
EARLY EVIDENCE
❖❖ The earliest evidence of democratic

institutions in the Greek world is found in
the work of the epic poet Homer, dated
725–700 BC. In the Odyssey, it’s noted
that the giant Cyclopes “don’t have
assemblies in which advice is given.” In
other words, they aren’t democratic.
❖❖ Both in the Iliad and in the Odyssey, we

see democratic assemblies taking place.
They prove that many of the features of
Athenian democracy were already in
place as early as the late 8th century BC.
Homer
❖❖ Homer also depicts debates occurring in
a fully realized way. He puts the reader
in the center of discussions. For example, at the very beginning of
the Iliad, a wartime assembly of Greeks encamped around the walls
of Troy takes place.
❖❖ The assembly has been called by the hero Achilles, the foremost
fighter on the Achaean side. Note that it has not been called by
Agamemnon, the commander of the Achaean army. After some
debate, the assembly ends with Agamemnon relinquishing his war
prize, threatening Achilles, and withdrawing from the battlefield to
avoid court martial.
❖❖ It’s the first example of democracy in action in Western literature,

and it’s not very flattering. Tempers run so high that the debate all
but ends in a bloodbath. Homer had no doubt witnessed meetings
that ended this way, when the stakes were very high.
THE SECOND WARTIME ASSEMBLY
❖❖ A second assembly takes place soon afterward in book 2 of the Iliad,

when Agamemnon is testing the resolve of the army. Beforehand,

Agamemnon
he holds a meeting of his council, the equivalent of what in later

times would be bodies called boules.
❖❖ Agamemnon explains to his council of senior officers that he is

summoning an assembly of the Achaean army because he wants to
test its resolve. He’s going to suggest that they should abandon the
siege of Troy and return home. He doesn’t really want that outcome.
❖❖ In reality, he wants to put a proposal before the army that he hopes

it will reject. It’s rather like a British prime minister calling an election
to see if she or he can get a bigger mandate. He summons the army
and proposes retreat, but a sizable portion of the army agrees with
his deceitful proposal.
❖❖ Thersites, a common soldier, gets up and says the war is pointless.

He wants people to go home and get on with their lives. Making
his intervention all the more striking is the fact that he’s deformed.
People who were deformed in ancient Greece were stigmatized.
This common man nevertheless has the courage to stand up and
14 | Lecture 2 v The Origins of Greek Democracy

say what is surely on a lot of people’s minds, now that Achilles has
withdrawn from the fighting.
❖❖ The central character, Odysseus, threatens to whip Thersites, but

in the end he settles for striking him with the council’s ceremonial
scepter. Homer tells us that this upset the Demos, but they laughed
anyway and praised Odysseus for silencing the braggart. They
evidently didn’t have the guts to defend him.
❖❖ Greek democracy as envisaged by Homer is dysfunctional. It begins

with an attempt to mislead, and it ends with physical violence
perpetrated against a speaker. However, there’s at least the hint of
a challenge to aristocratic privilege because Thersites has courage
and is actually speaking sense.
PEACETIME ASSEMBLY
❖❖ The Odyssey features a peacetime assembly. In book 2, Odysseus’s

son Telemachus calls an assembly to complain about his mother’s
suitors. There are 108 of them squatting in Odysseus’s palace,
importuning her to marry one of them against her will, and feasting
and drinking at his expense.
❖❖ Telemachus orders heralds to pass the word to “the long-haired

Achaeans,” i.e., to the male population of Ithaca. They arrive the
same day it seems. This gathering is held in the agora, an open
space in the center of the city.
❖❖ Telemachus rises and takes his stand “in the middle of the agora.”
A herald hands him the ceremonial scepter, signaling that he has
the floor. Telemachus gives an emotional speech about his private
grievance with the suitors. He invokes the deity Zeus, under whose
protection the gathering could occur, and politely requests that the
suitors leave him and his mother alone.
❖❖ Eventually, Antinous, one of the suitors, gets up and starts blaming

Penelope, Telemachus’s mother, for refusing to choose one of the
suitors as her husband. He declares that they won’t leave Odysseus’

Zeus
palace till she does. He berates Telemachus and calls upon Zeus to
destroy him.
❖❖ At this point, Zeus sends two eagles flying over the agora. An aged
seer called Halitherses interprets the omen in Odysseus’s favor,
prophesying that Odysseus will one day return home.
❖❖ Another suitor called Eurymachus now rises. He belittles Halitherses,

ridicules his prophecy, and urges Telemachus to persuade his
mother to choose one of the suitors. Then, Telemachus rises again.
He says he’s given up trying to persuade the suitors to mend their
ways. He requests a ship and 20 companions so he can sail to the
Greek mainland to discover his father’s whereabouts.
❖❖ A character called Mentor, who is actually Athena in disguise, next

rises and chides the gathering for not having the courage to put the
suitors in their place. Last to speak is a suitor called Leocritus, who
upbraids Mentor for speaking out of turn. He then breaks up the
assembly, presumably by making a motion to adjourn, which the
majority accept.

❖❖ Telemachus has achieved very little, apart from taking a courageous
stand and trying to right a wrong. His actions show he’s becoming
a man. Homer does a very fine job of putting the reader in
Telemachus’s sandals and showing what it must have been like
addressing a powerful group for the first time, facing criticism from
the old hands, and hoping that someone like Halitherses or Mentor
would come to assist.
COUNCIL OF THE GODS
❖❖ The Odyssey also provides evidence of the fact that in addition, to

assemblies, the Greeks of the late 8th and early 7th centuries BC
were also familiar with how a council worked. In book 1, the gods
takes their seats in Zeus’s palace on Mount Olympus.
❖❖ The first to speak is Zeus, who opens the proceedings by complaining

that the gods are being blamed for things they can’t control—that is,
human folly, which brings its own punishment. After he’s had his
rant, Athena speaks, asking if the gods have forgotten about the
suffering of Odysseus.
❖❖ Odysseus is currently being held as a sex slave by the nymph

Calypso. Athena proposes sending the messenger Hermes to order
Calypso to release Odysseus. Athena manages to get her way
because one of the members of the council who’s opposed to her
proposal, Poseidon, isn’t in attendance. The method of waiting for the
opposition’s absence to strike is a common tactic in council settings.
CONCLUSION
❖❖ Homer’s description strongly suggests that democracy had a formal

structure as early as 700 BC. It’s clear that he had serious reservations
about democracy, but it’s also striking that democratic assemblies
take place at the beginning of both the Iliad and the Odyssey. It’s
almost as if Homer is saying: This is how Greeks do things.
❖❖ The origins of democracy are contentious. The Cambridge ancient

historian Paul Cartledge points to the trend among some scholars

to dethrone the primacy of Greece as the place where democracy
started. These scholars suggest that democracy had its roots in
China, India, and the Middle East, and that it continued to exist in
the Islamic world, in Iceland, in Venice, and in precolonial Africa,
when most of Europe was in the throes of the Dark Ages.
❖❖ It’s certainly true that many other societies have evinced democratic
characteristics. However, it also has to be acknowledged that none,
so far as scholars know, exhibited the same confidence in the
common man as Greece, and specifically Athens, did.
Suggested Reading
Forrest, The Emergence of Greek Democracy.
Hammer, “Homer and Political Thought.”
1. What do the Iliad and Odyssey teach us about Homer’s opinion of
democracy?
2. How do you suppose Homer’s audience would have responded to

Homer’s picture of Greek democracy at work?

3
Solon: The Father
of Democracy?
T his lecture first puts Athens in context. The

Greek-speaking world included communities
in mainland Greece, islands of Aegean, the west
coast of modern-day Turkey, the southern shore of
Black Sea, northern Africa, southern Italy, coastal
Sicily, southern France, and eastern Spain. After
situating Athens in that world and describing it,
the lecture turns to the innovator Solon.
THE WORLD OF ATHENS
❖❖ The Greek-speaking world was primarily comprised of poleis

(singular: polis), populated by autonomous citizens and slaves. The
conventional translation of the term polis is “city-state,” which isn’t
very accurate, as many poleis didn’t have a city at their core.
❖❖ Physically, a polis consisted of a center, urban or otherwise, surrounded

by countryside. There were about 1,000 such poleis when the Greek
world was at its demographic height, each with its own law code,
political system, socioeconomic structure, and religious observances.
Half or more were ruled by aristocracies or oligarchies.
❖❖ The surrounding territory of Athens was Attica. The territory resembled

a dangling carrot in shape and comprised about 1,000 square miles.
No other polis controlled such a large area, apart from Sparta. Even
so, this was a smaller territory than the state of Rhode Island.
❖❖ Athens was a highly literate society. At its demographic height,

before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC, Athenian
20 | Lecture 3 v Solon: The Father of Democracy?

citizens numbered perhaps as many as 50,000. The total population
of Attica is estimated at around 200,000. It’s likely that at least
100,000 of those were slaves.
BEFORE SOLON
❖❖ In the 9th century BC, Greece, including Attica, had been experiencing
what scholars call a dark age. This was a period when there was
very little communication, little art or architecture, and little evidence
in general of civilized life.
❖❖ Things begin to change in the 8th century, when Athens provides

evidence of artistic accomplishment, notably in the form of
magnificent pottery. This time also provides the earliest evidence for
the Greek alphabet, though very few people would have been able
to read or write at this date.
❖❖ Our only written source for this period is the Aristotelian Athenaiôn
Politeia. This was a work of the 4th century BC. It was written about
250 years later than the first move toward democracy in the time
of Solon. It resembles other works by Aristotle and may have been
composed by one of his pupils, but definitely not by the master
himself. It’s not wholly reliable.
THE ARCHON SYSTEM
❖❖ The Athenaiôn Politeia tells us that first there was a monarchy,

then there were archons (or magistrates) who served for life, then
archons who served for 10 years, and finally archons who served
for just one year. The word archon means literally “one who rules.”
❖❖ The general picture that the Athenaiôn Politeia paints is probably

correct: a gradual weakening of absolute power over time. In other
words, the changes did not come about as a result of revolution or
violent coup, but of evolution over time.
❖❖ Initially, there were only three magistrates: the archon basileus,

polemarchos, and archon eponymos. The archon basileus was the

most important religious official, the polemarchos was in charge of
the military, and the archon eponymos was the chief magistrate. It
was he who gave his name to the year.
❖❖ We have an inscribed list of the Athenian archons dating from 682/1

BC, which is thus the first date in Athenian history. Note: The date
is stylized as 682/1 because the Athenian calendar year began in
midsummer rather than in winter, as the modern Western calendar
year does. When scholars do have a date, it’s usually expressed with
a line dividing the year that precedes it from the year that follows.
❖❖ The year 682/1 is probably when the Athenian archonship was

first introduced. Later, but probably still in the 7th century BC, six
other archons were added to the original three. These were the
thesmothêtai, which means “those who lay down the law.” They
were responsible for jurisdiction and jurisprudence.
❖❖ All the archons were drawn from ranks of the Eupatridae, a word
that means “sons of good or noble fathers.” In other words, archons
came from the aristocracy. In addition to the archons, there was the
Areopagus. This was the council of aristocrats, which the Athenians
believed had been instituted by the gods. Its exact duties are
unclear, but it possessed considerable prestige.
❖❖ Finally, there was the Assembly. The Greek word for this is Ecclesia.
It means literally “gathering of those summoned” because the
Demos (the people) were summoned to the Assembly by a herald.
A FAILED COUP
❖❖ In the late 630s or early 620s BC, a failed coup to set up a tyranny
took place. It led to an eternal curse being placed on the aristocratic
family that attempted the coup, known as the Alcmaeonids. The
curse did not, however, prevent the family from continuing to
exercise a leading role in Athenian politics.
❖❖ Pericles, the most influential politician in the period leading up to

the Peloponnesian War, was an Alcmaeonid. So was Alcibiades,

who dominated Athenian politics in the second half of the
Peloponnesian War.
❖❖ A few years later, in 621/0, a man called Dracon was appointed to

establish a law code. This was an extremely important step along the
path to democracy. It meant that the law was no longer something
controlled by an elite body of aristocrats.
ENTER SOLON
❖❖ By 594/3 BC, literary sources become few and far between. Our
main source are the poems of Solon the lawgiver, as he is sometimes
entitled, which have survived in fragmentary form. We also have
the relevant section of the Athenaiôn Politeia and a depiction of
the life of Solon, which was written over 500 years later by the
biographer Plutarch.

❖❖ Athens in this period was facing an acute economic and social
crisis. The most plausible explanation is that it was the result of debt
bondage—that is, Athenians falling into debt and selling themselves
to their creditors, who then in effect enslaved them.
❖❖ In 594/3, Solon was appointed archon and diallektês, or “arbitrator.”

One of his most important measures was the cancellation of debts.
Solon also proscribed enslavement of Athenians by Athenians. This
meant Athenians by definition were free, but it also led to slaves
being imported from abroad to replace Athenian workers.
❖❖ Solon divided the citizen body into four groups according to wealth:
those owning 500, 300, 200, and less than 200 medimnoi, or
“bushels.” This division meant that Athens was no longer strictly an
aristocracy. Aristocrats were still in driving seat because they were
the wealthiest, but people could move up or down as they made
or lost wealth. Athens, in other words, was now moving toward a
timocracy, a society based on wealth rather than birth.
❖❖ The Ecclesia at the time of Solon met regularly, perhaps for the first
time. Previously it had met only at bidding of a magistrate. Solon
also established a court of appeal (hêliaea) versus the verdict of a
magistrate. He also introduced a graphê (public action). Henceforth,
“anyone who liked,” as the phrasing went, could bring a public action
against anyone else. Previously, only the injured party could appeal
for justice.
MORE MEASURES FROM SOLON
❖❖ It may be that Solon established a Council of 400 as a check upon

the power of the Areopagus. The Athenian citizen body at this time
was divided into four tribes, and, if such a council was introduced
at this time, 100 representatives were now appointed from each of
the tribes.
❖❖ Archons were now elected from the top two classes and subject
to two important controls: First, their word was no longer the law,
since there was now a court of appeal; and second, they had to take
an oath before assuming office. If they didn’t keep that oath, they

could be charged and fined. Solon also codified laws—that is, he
collected, organized them, and revised them.
❖❖ Solon also introduced legislation that had to do with funerals. The

aim of this legislation was to set a maximum limit on all forms of
ostentation that could be practiced at or after a funeral. The idea
was to limit the use of funerals to promote aristocratic power and
privilege for political or propagandist effect.
SOLON’S LEGACY
❖❖ To a large extent, we know about Solon because he was a poet,

and much of his poetry survives. He chose poetry as the preferred
vehicle of explaining his political program. In fact, he recited his
poetry in public in addition to having his laws written on wooden
tablets available for public consultation.
❖❖ The ancients and some modern historians regard Solon as the

“father of democracy.” His poems, however, don’t indicate any
intention to present himself as a democrat. He was a most unusual
phenomenon in politics: a man without allegiance to any social or
economic group, who genuinely spoke for the whole people and had
their interests at heart.
❖❖ After introducing his reforms, Solon stepped down and went into self-
imposed exile. He wanted his laws to remain in force for 100 years
and evidently thought that his absence would in some way help.
❖❖ Every Athenian citizen was required to take an oath of obedience

to Solon’s constitution. Even so, there was considerable political
turmoil following his legislation, though the details are unclear.
❖❖ Regardless of the turmoil, Solon had a vision and put it into effect.
Athens could hardly be described as a democracy at this point, but
pieces of what later became democracy were beginning to fit together.

Suggested Reading
Cartledge, Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice.
Mossé, “How a Political Myth Takes Shape.”
1. Did Solon do anything to justify the title of father of democracy?
2. Which of Solon’s reforms was most important in setting Athens on the

path to democracy?

4
Cleisthenes the Innovator
A thens in the aftermath of the reforms of

Solon was for a short period in political
freefall. No elections for magistrates took place.
Literary sources reveal very little about anything
that happened in Athens between the period
of Solon’s reforms and the middle of the 6th
century. That 50-year period is largely shrouded
in darkness, but Solon’s reforms were successful
in averting a major crisis. This lecture looks at
a later innovator, Cleisthenes, who played a
large part in moving Athenians along the path
towards democracy.
PEISISTRATUS
❖❖ The aforementioned information blackout doesn’t lift until a tyrant

called Peisistratus seizes power in 546 BC. His tyranny lasted two
generations, after two attempts he made to seize power had been
thwarted.
❖❖ Later Athenians didn’t look upon his reign kindly, but in a sense,
they got lucky in some ways. Peisistratus left the structures of
government intact. He didn’t suspend democracy; he merely filled
most important offices with his own family members and supporters.
He also provided three decades of stability, and he introduced
measures in support of small landowners.
❖❖ It was under his rule that Athens became the cultural leader of the
Greek world. He did this in part by promoting the Panathenaea and
the Great Dionysia, the two most important state festivals. This gave
Athens more visibility in the Greek world.
❖❖ When Peisistratus died in 527, the successor was his elder son,
Hippias, who was assisted by his younger brother, Hipparchos.
In 514, two young Athenians called Harmodius and Aristogeiton
murdered Hipparchos. As a result, Hippias became more oppressive
than he had been before. He was eventually driven out of Athens in
510.
CLEISTHENES’S RISE TO POWER
❖❖ Three years after Hippias had been driven out of Athens, a civil
war was threatening to erupt. On one side were aristocrats led by
Isagoras. On the other was Cleisthenes, another aristocrat of the
Alcmaeonid genos, or “noble kin group.”
❖❖ Both men, according to Herodotus, were “aiming at consolidating

their political power.” First, Isagoras got the upper hand, and was
elected archon in 508 or 507. With help of his friend, King Cleomenes
of Sparta, Isagoras drove his rival Cleisthenes into exile.
28 | Lecture 4 v Cleisthenes the Innovator

❖❖ However, the Council of 400 wouldn’t accept this state of affairs.
The Demos rose in revolt, with the result being a quick turnabout.
In the same year, Cleisthenes retaliated by proposing a program
of constitutional reform. In Herodotus’s phrasing, “he added the
Demos to his faction.”
THE DEME SYSTEM
❖❖ We don’t know if Cleisthenes held the office of archon during

the period of his reforms. Regardless, the new arrangement was
complicated, artificial, and wholly successful. It undermined once
and for all the grip on power exercised by aristocrats through their
control of the countryside.
❖❖ Cleisthenes made demes the basis of Athenian citizenship and the

foundation upon which all the larger political groupings rested. A
deme was a small town or village. Cleisthenes identified 139 or 140
of them, scattered throughout Attica, including in Athens. These now
became the basis of loyalty to the state.
❖❖ Each deme was a distinct political unit with its own demarch (or
mayor), its own assembly, its own treasury, and its own festivals.
Demes varied greatly in size. The largest of them was Acharnae
in northern Attica. Scholars know it was the largest because it
contributed no fewer than 22 members to the Athenian Boule, or
Council of 500, that Cliesthenes introduced. Another deme was so
tiny that it only contributed two.
❖❖ Every deme kept a register with names of every demesman who

reached the age of 18. This now became the citizen register. If a
person wasn’t registered in a deme, they weren’t recognized as a
citizen and had no citizen rights.
❖❖ A person became a demesmen, and hence a citizen, by undergoing

an examination known as the dokimasia. If a majority of demesmen
affirmed someone’s parents were Athenian and they had reached
the age of 18, they were enrolled. At the deme level, even the
humblest citizen could play some part, expressing his views in the
deme assembly.

❖❖ A person was registered in the deme as the
son of their father and as a member of
their deme. For example, the famous
statesman Pericles would have had the
full name Pericles, son of Xanthippus, of
the deme Cholargos. This move was clearly
intended to abolish social distinctiveness
arising from names.
❖❖ Membership in one’s deme now

mattered more than membership in any
other grouping. The older groupings
continued to exist—there were still
phratries, or brotherhoods—but these
now lost importance. An Athenian retained
his deme affiliation even if he went to
live in another deme in Attica, as did all
his descendants.
Pericles
THE 10 NEW TRIBES
❖❖ Cleisthenes abolished the original four ancient tribes and replaced

them with 10 new ones, named after Attic heroes. Each tribe was
made up of three trittyes, or “thirds.” There were 30 trittyes in all.
❖❖ Each trittys consisted of either coastal demes, inland demes, or

urban demes. When three trittyes were put together as a tribe,
the tribe had people from the coast, people from the inland region,
and people from the urban area. In this way, Cleisthenes broke
the aristocratic power blocs that had governed Athenian politics
until then.
THE COUNCIL OF 500
❖❖ Cleisthenes instituted a Council of 500, replacing the Council of 400

that had existed previously. It was the function of the new council to
prepare the agenda for the Assembly and to advise magistrates. It
thus exercised considerable control over state machinery.

❖❖ Fifty councilors from each of the 10 new tribes were elected by lot.
Each tribe served as an inner council for a tenth of the year in the
prytany system. All councilors had to take oath to obey the laws and
to act in the interests of Athens.
❖❖ Cleisthenes didn’t do anything to curtail the powers of the aristocratic

council known as the Areopagus, which continued to be filled with
ex-magistrates. The Areopagus would become the focus of attack
by democratic reformers 40 years later. He also left the hêliaia, the
popular court of appeal established by Solon, alone.
Areopagus
SORTITION
❖❖ A principle that came to the fore in this period was appointment by

lot, also known as sortition. That term comes from the Latin word
sors, meaning “lot” or “destiny,” which suggests that if a person gets
chosen, it’s their fate.

❖❖ This was not a new procedure. It may have been introduced by
Solon for election of jurors to the hêliaia. Cleisthenes introduced
sortition on a much greater scale, both for the election of members
of the Council of 500 and for most magistrates. The exceptions were
the archons and the 10 generals.
❖❖ Later on, the superintendents of Athens’s water supply and naval

architects were also elected by popular vote. The only positions that
weren’t determined by lot, in other words, were those that required
expertise.
OSTRACISM
❖❖ A political safeguard that may have been introduced by Cleisthenes

was ostracism. Once a year, the Demos was asked if it wished to
invoke process. If it said yes, two or three months later, a reverse
election took place between any number of candidates whose
policies were seen to be divisive and destructive of consensus.
❖❖ If a minimum of 6,000 votes were cast in total for all candidates, the
politician judged most divisive and objectionable had to leave Athens
within 10 days and stay away for 10 years. After the 10 years were up,
the exile could return and play a full part in democracy again.
❖❖ The initial objective of ostracism was probably to guard against any

aspirant to tyranny. However, it came to be used to defuse conflict
between two or more leading politicians and hence avoid civil war. In
addition, it could be used as a way of venting popular anger.
CLEISTHENES: REVOLUTIONARY?
❖❖ Some scholars might say Cleisthenes was a revolutionary, but

there are three arguments for supposing that he was by no means
a revolutionary in the conventional sense of the word. First, there
are some grounds for concluding that his main objective was to
advantage his own genos, the Alcmaeonids, by exploiting general
discontent in their favor.

❖❖ Second, it is doubtful whether he saw himself as introducing
something akin to democracy. The key concept of his reforms was
isonomia, or “equality under the law.” That’s essential to democracy,
but by no means the same thing as democracy.
❖❖ Third, we shouldn’t think that Cleisthenes thought of his reforms

unaided. He probably had help from several like-minded supporters,
whose names have not been revealed to scholars by sources. One
of the leading authorities on Athenian democracy, the American
historian Josh Ober, believes that the key role was in part played
by the Demos.
❖❖ Regardless, whether as leader or as facilitator, Cleisthenes played

an invaluable part in moving Athenians along the path towards
democracy. That is because his new tribal system was artificial
but brilliant. It worked from the start, and there was no serious
opposition to it.
Suggested Reading
Lévêque and Vidal-Naquet, Cleisthenes the Athenian.
Ober, “The Athenian Revolution of 508/7 BC.”
1. Was Cleisthenes a political genius?
2. In what sense can Cleisthenes be seen as a revolutionary?

5
The Nearly
Bloodless Coup
T his lecture focuses on a coup, a sudden

and violent seizure of power that moved
democracy further down the road. It took place
in 462/1 BC, about 50 years after the reforms
of Cleisthenes. In the interval, democracy had
continued to evolve. This was the period of the
Greco-Persian Wars, when the Greek world came
close to being subsumed into the Persian Empire.
ATHENS VERSUS PERSIA
❖❖ Athens and Persia had first come into direct contact with one another
in 499 BC, when Athens sent 20 triremes to assist the Ionian Greeks
living on the coast of modern-day Turkey in their revolt against the
Persian yoke. Another Greek city, Eretria, sent five ships.
❖❖ Their efforts came to naught, and a few years later, the Persians
dispatched a force to punish the Athenians and the Eretrians. They
burned Eretria to the ground, transporting its population to Persia
to serve as slaves. However, the Athenians defeated them at the
Battle of Marathon in 490.
❖❖ Regarding domestic affairs, it was in 487/6 when, for the first time,
the nine archons were selected by lot, instead of being elected as
before. Ostracism, too, was used for first time in this year. In 483/2,
Themistocles persuaded the Athenians to use the silver from their
mines in southeastern Attica to build a fleet and convert Athens into
a naval power.
❖❖ The seeds for the aforementioned coup were sown in the year
480. The Persian king Xerxes had invaded Greece with a massive
amphibious expeditionary force. He intended to conquer not
only Athens but also the Greek mainland. However, his fleet was
defeated in a battle near Salamis, an island off the coast of Attica,
largely due to the Athenians.
❖❖ Before the Persians invaded Attica, the Athenian Demos took the
momentous decision to evacuate the entire civilian population to
places of safety outside Attica. The numbers involved are hard to
estimate, but it was probably upward of 100,000 people. Eventually,
they came home to a war-ruined city that they had to rebuild.
THE POSTWAR YEARS AND A TURNING POINT
❖❖ Athens alone did not defeat the Persians. Many other city-states,
notably Sparta, Corinth, and Aegina, made a major contribution,
but it’s fair to say that the Athenian contribution was decisive. This

made it, in Athens’s eyes, a victory for democracy. The Athenians
had come close to annihilation, but their spirit was unbroken.
❖❖ The year 462/1 was a turning point in Athenian history and was always
regarded as such by the Athenians themselves. This was when the
moderate democracy of the Greco-Persian Wars was transformed
into radical democracy of the ensuing Peloponnesian War.
❖❖ The Greco-Persian Wars had culminated in the invasion of Attica by

Xerxes and his defeat at Salamis, followed by the defeat the year after
of his commander in chief Mardonius at Plataea in central Greece.
❖❖ The author of the Athenaiôn Politeia tells us that a man named

Ephialtes led a political attack on the Areopagus, charging some
of its members with corruption. The Areopagus consisted of ex-
archons. Ephialtes was allegedly assisted by a young and upcoming
politician called Pericles, but we don’t know in what capacity.
36 | Lecture 5 v The Nearly Bloodless Coup

❖❖ Ephialtes initiated his attack on the Areopagus when an
archconservative politician called Cimon was absent in Messenia.
In 462/1, the Areopagus lost some of its powers, likely these: the
prosecution of a magistrate for exceeding the terms of his office, the
power to arrest and fine a citizen who broke the law, the right to hear
cases of impeachment for treason or for causing a disaster, and the
scrutiny of magistrates before and after leaving office.
❖❖ These powers were now transferred to the hêliaia, the court of

law founded by Solon, which now took the name of the dikastêria
(the people’s jury courts). The Areopagus retained jurisdiction in
homicide cases and protection of the sanctity of holy places.
❖❖ The stripping of powers from the Areopagus aroused passions

because Ephialtes was assassinated shortly afterwards. His murder
was the only violence sources show, though.
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS
❖❖ The weakening of the Areopagus was not the end of the road in the
establishment of a radical democracy. Other developments moved
Athens more in this direction over the following decade. Three
developments in particular are notable. First, a circular building
on the western side of the agora known as the Tholos was built
roughly at this time. This was where the 50 prytaneis, the standing
committee of the Council of 500, sat for one-tenth of the year. The
construction of a new building can be interpreted as a signal of this
body’s growing importance.
❖❖ Second, in 457/6, a law was passed and attributed to Pericles,

though we can’t be sure whether it was entirely at his initiative. This
law asserted the principle of equal eligibility and it was therefore
symbolic of the increasing inclusivity of Athenian democracy.
❖❖ Third, in the 450s, possibly on Pericles’ initiative, payment was

introduced for jurors. This move was made possible by the tribute
money that was being exacted from members of Delian League,
which was under the leadership of Athens. The introduction of pay

made possible the participation of Athens’s poorest citizens in the
legal process.
❖❖ There are two more measures introduced in this period that suggest
that the Demos was becoming more protective of its rights. First,
in 451/0, the Demos voted to limit the franchise to those of citizen
parentage, mother as well as father. As a result of this law, 5,000
people were allegedly struck off their deme registers and deprived
of citizenship.
❖❖ Second, it may be that the graphê paranomôn, “the public action

regarding proposals that were contrary to the laws,” was now
introduced. Anyone who sought to subvert constitution by proposing
that the powers of the Demos be curtailed was now liable to
prosecution, though the first evidence of its use dates to 415.
CONCLUSION
❖❖ Scholars debate the question of when precisely Athens became a

democracy. Cleisthenes took the major step in constituting Athens
as a democracy back in 508/7, when he made the demes the basis
of political and civic life and introduced the Council of 500.
❖❖ However, what Athens did in 462/1 was truly remarkable. Athens

was now a direct, radical democracy. The stripping of powers from
the Areopagus signaled a seismic shift. Henceforth, if a person was
a member of the Demos, they were a member of the elite, regardless
of background, wealth, or education.
❖❖ Yet not everything changed as the result of the radicalization of

Athens’s democracy. Political leaders continued to be aristocrats
until the early years of the Peloponnesian War, a full generation
later. It seems that the Demos continued to be mesmerized by
wealth and power and privilege.
❖❖ The death of Ephialtes left Pericles as the unchallenged leader

of the democratic political tendency. He would dominate Athenian
politics for nearly 35 years.
38 | Lecture 5 v The Nearly Bloodless Coup

Suggested Reading
Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution.
Kagan, Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy.
1. Why do you suppose Athens became a radical democracy with so little
bloodshed?
2. How and why did Athens’s passage to equal rights for all differ so strongly
from the path taken by other revolutionary movements?

6
Democracy at War
T he subject of this lecture is how the Athenian

democracy made war. Athens, like every
polis, was an autonomous community. It had its
own laws, its own social system, its own form
of government, and its own military. A city-state
couldn’t be autonomous if it didn’t have its own
military. Moreover, the Greeks were constantly
at war with one another, mostly about useless
parcels of land or grudges whose origins were
buried in the mists of time. Regardless, war was
an important and frequent undertaking.
SERVICE AND HOPLITES
❖❖ The Greeks regarded military service as a privilege, and it was

tied to citizenship. The Athenian military was amateur in the sense
that Athenians couldn’t make a career out of service in the armed
forces. Every Athenian citizen served on a regular basis throughout
his adult life, from age 18 to 59. There must have been a handful
of exceptions—men who didn’t serve because they
were judged too sick or feeble—but sources
don’t talk about them. Slaves
occasionally fought at times of
crisis, but that was rare.
❖❖ An intriguing military moment

occurs in the Iliad when the
elderly Nestor pitches an
idea to Agamemnon and
the other Greek chiefs. The
idea was to line the men
up and make them fight in
serried ranks. Up until then,
aristocrats like Achilles and
Hector went around looking for
someone to fight of their own social
status. Only individual combat between
aristocrats has any impact on the
outcome of an engagement.
Hector
❖❖ Nestor’s idea anticipated the

style of fighting called hoplite warfare. That’s
when armed warriors fight together in serried ranks in a rectangle,
advancing together in lockstep. Hoplites depended on each other
for protection; if one broke ranks, the formation was in trouble.
❖❖ The objective of hoplite warfare was to break through the enemy line
en masse. Most battles were probably over in about an hour, and
casualties were perhaps as high as about 15 percent. The birth of
hoplite fighting, around 700 BC or a bit later, occurred around the
same time as the birth of the concept of the citizen.

HOPLITES AND DEMOCRACY
❖❖ In the year 490, the Persian king Darius sent an invasion force to
mainland Greece to punish the Athenians and the Eretrians. He
wanted to punish them for sacking Sardis, a major city in Lydia,
which was part of the Persian Empire. The Athenians and the
Eretrians had the audacity to give help to the Ionian Greeks in their
revolt from the Persians.
❖❖ It didn’t do any good. The Persians were far too powerful, and
they exacted terrible reprisals after they put the revolt down. They
first burned Eretria to the ground. They next traveled to Attica and
landed in the bay near Marathon, a coastal deme 26 miles northeast
of Athens. The Athenians were greatly outnumbered but won an
astounding victory, losing 192 casualties compared to 6,400 for
the Persians.
❖❖ The victory, being won by an army of equals, gave democracy a

boost. It was as if democracy had proven more than a match for the
Persians, who were subject to a king with absolute power.
MILITARY HIERARCHY
❖❖ There was no commander in chief in the Athenian army. Instead,

there was a board of 10 stratêgoi. They were elected by popular
vote because it was one of the few offices that the Athenains thought
required experience and skill. All were of equal status.
❖❖ The stratêgoi were naval as well as army commanders. The

Athenians assumed if someone was qualified to lead an army, they
could also direct a fleet. Reelection to the post of stratêgos was
permissible, and there was no limit to the number of times one could
hold the post. Each of the 10 generals was elected from one of 10
tribes. After 440 BC, however, there could be two generals from the
same tribe.
❖❖ The Demos often held generals accountable if their army or navy

suffered a defeat. For example, the politician Pericles was deposed
42 | Lecture 6 v Democracy at War

from his generalship in 430 when the Peloponnesian War wasn’t
going well. He wasn’t exiled, but he was fined heavily.
❖❖ Below the stratêgoi there were 10 taxiarchoi, squadron commanders

in charge of the infantry, and 10 phylarchoi corresponding to cavalry
officers. There wasn’t, however, the elaborate hierarchy of lance
corporals, corporals, lieutenants, captains, majors, and so on, as in
the American military.
THE ATHENIAN NAVY
❖❖ Athens wasn’t always a naval power. In 490, it had only a small

fleet. That changed in 483/2, when they struck a particularly rich
vein of silver at their silver mines at Lavrium in southeast Attica. The
politician Themistocles cajoled Athens into building a large fleet. He
did so because he sensed that the Persians would be back and that
the Athenian army would not be large enough to resist them.
❖❖ The Athenians built a fleet of triremes. Triremes were warships with

three banks of oars. A modern trireme known as the Olympias has
been constructed, reproducing the specifications of the original
model in authentic detail. Its cruising speed is six knots, but when it
Trireme

sprints, as it would have done when ramming a Persian ship with its
prow, it can achieve nine knots.
❖❖ Athens’s fleet was primarily manned by the poorest citizens, the

thêtes, who couldn’t afford hoplite armor to serve in the infantry or a
horse to serve in cavalry. All they needed was an oar, and that was
provided by the state.
❖❖ The consequence was that the building of the fleet increased the
importance of the poorest sector of Athens’s population and gave
it a vital role in Athens’s defense. This was a vital factor in the
development of democracy.
❖❖ In second half of the 5th century BC, Athens’s fleet comprised 200
to 300 ships. Each ship had a crew of 200, split up between 170
rowers and 30 other personnel. Using an estimate of 200 ships, that
adds up to 40,000 men in total. It wasn’t only thêtes who served in
the fleet. Metics regularly served, slaves did so at times of crisis, and
mercenaries were also employed, increasingly so in the 4th century.
SALAMIS
❖❖ Two years after the silver strike in 483/2, a Persian invasion under
Darius’s successor Xerxes took place. The invasion wasn’t focused
on Athens exclusively, but Athens was the primary target. Athens’s
population evacuated before the incursion, with many going to the
island of Salamis, less than a mile from the Attic coast.
❖❖ Largely due to the genius of Themistocles, however, the Greek

coalition won a resounding naval victory in the straits of Salamis. Like
Marathon, Salamis confirmed the quality of Athenian democracy. It
elevated the standing of rowers, as opposed to infantry.
❖❖ Two years later, in 478, Athens became protector of the Greek world
against the Persians. Athens was able to do this because its fleet
was second to none and because Athens alone had the will to lead.

ATHENS AS A POWER
❖❖ Athens’s rising stature played a large role in the Delian League,

which was an initially free association of Greek states under
leadership of Athens. It was called the Delian League because its
treasury and council were centered on the sacred island of Delos
in the Cyclades island group, which was the birthplace of the divine
twins, Artemis and Apollo.
❖❖ The Delian League was established on democratic lines. Each member

state, about 150 in all, exercised one vote in the council. Each also,
according to its size, contributed ships to the common fleet.
❖❖ Within a fairly short span of time, however, Athens began to dominate

the council, both because it was able to exercise leverage over the
smaller states and because its allies preferred to take up the option
of contributing tribute rather than ships. The Delian Confederacy
eventually turned into the Athenian Empire.
❖❖ The growth of Athens as a maritime power corresponded with the

construction of the dockyard and ship sheds in the peninsula that
lies five miles southwest of Athens, called the Piraeus. Ultimately,
the Piraeus developed into a commercial as well as naval port, as it
became a center of trade in the eastern Mediterranean.
❖❖ In the 450s, it was joined to Athens by the so-called Long Walls.

These were two stretches of wall that ran parallel to one another the
length of the distance between Athens and the Piraeus. That was
to have a profound effect on the course of the Peloponnesian War.

Suggested Reading
Hanson, “Hoplites into Democrats.”
Ober, “The Rules of War in Classical Greece.”
Pritchard, War, Democracy, and Culture in Classical Athens.
Strauss, “The Athenian Trireme, School of Democracy.”
1. Should a willingness to fight for one’s country be a privilege, an entitlement,
or a requirement?
2. How did service in the Athenian military contribute to the success of

Athens’s democracy?

7
The Popular Assembly
R adical democracy was achieved in Athens

in the late 460s and early 450s BC. It would
continue to evolve, but the essential pieces were all
in place. This lecture focuses on how the most basic
piece, the Ecclesia (or Assembly), functioned.
DAY-TO-DAY FUNCTIONING
❖❖ In the 5th century BC, the Ecclesia may have met fewer than once a
month, with more frequent meetings during times of war. By the 4th
century BC, the group met 40 times a year. Four days’ notice was
usually given before the Assembly gathered, though extraordinary
meetings could be called at a moment’s notice. The gatherings were
likely announced by heralds.
❖❖ Every freeborn citizen Pnyx

over the age of 20 could
attend. It’s likely that
about 10 to 20 percent
of the citizen body, or
5,000 to 6,000 people,
attended the Assembly.
Meetings were usually
held on the Pnyx, the
hill to the western side
of the Acropolis.
❖❖ The Pnyx was enlarged

in the 4th century BC so
that it could accommodate 15,000. That’s interesting because at the
time, the citizen body probably comprised only 20,000 people owing
to losses in the Peloponnesian War. This implies that the Athenians
became more civic-minded in this time.
❖❖ However, not every Athenian was engaged. Meetings took place at

dawn, and many Athenians would have to give up multiple days for
travel to and from the Assembly.
❖❖ A meeting of the Assembly was a religious occasion. Before a

meeting of the Assembly was declared open, sacrifices were
performed, sacred water was sprinkled around the perimeter of the
Pnyx, and prayers and curses were delivered. During the Greco-
Persian Wars, for instance, they would have cursed the Persians.
48 | Lecture 7 v The Popular Assembly

PROTOCOL
❖❖ The meeting of the Assembly was conducted by the chairman, who

determined who got the chance to speak on whatever was under
discussion. It was the Council, or Boule, that published the agenda.
❖❖ Discussions became rowdy at times. Heckling and shouting were

common occurrences, and the Iliad depicts Odysseus striking
people with his staff. In Athens, Scythian archers stood by to keep
order and expel any troublemakers.
❖❖ Within the Assembly, all men were equal, and anyone could speak—
in theory. The chairman would open the meeting by asking who
wished to speak. People seated in the back probably had no hope of
catching his eye, and in practice, around 20 individuals dominated
debate at any one time.
❖❖ As the historian Robin Osborne has noted, inscriptions show that

the men who got up and recommended changes to proposals are
mostly unknown to modern scholars. This demonstrates that active
participation in political debate was not limited to career politicians.
THE ABSENCE OF EXPERTISE?
❖❖ While the Assembly often featured the common man, there was a
great deal of expertise in the body. It incorporated men of diverse
backgrounds, and many Athenians would have served on the
Council, held magistracies, or been involved in the administrative
side of democracy in some other capacity.
❖❖ Inevitably, however, there were times when the Demos was voting
about matters it knew very little about. The classic instance is at
the beginning of the sixth book of Thucydides’s history, where
the historian claims that most of those who voted for the Sicilian
expedition were entirely ignorant both of the size of the island and
of its population.

❖❖ There were also times when the Demos was deceived. For instance,
it was deceived by ambassadors from Segesta, a city in Sicily. They
wanted the Athenians to sign up for the invasion and falsely claimed
to have the resources to help defray the cost of the expedition.
DEMOS DIVISIONS
❖❖ The Demos featured no official political leaders, no parties, no

whips, and no political manifestoes. Broadly speaking, there were
three interest groups:
1. The oligarchs, who belonged to cavalry class.
2. The moderates, who comprised the hoplite class.
3. The urban proletariat or radicals, who served as rowers in

the fleet.
❖❖ Even those interest groups weren’t set in stone. Many Athenians

voted on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes, age caused a division,
too: In one account, when the Demos was debating about whether
to invade Sicily, Nicias disparaged Alcibiades by claiming that he
was too young to hold a command and called upon the older men
to oppose his proposal to invade Sicily. Alcibiades responded by
urging the young to work with the old to achieve consensus.
VOTING
❖❖ Political leadership was tested with each new proposal that

came before the Assembly. Every vote was a referendum, and
the Assembly reached decisions by simple majority. According to
tradition, members raised their right hand to vote. Counting votes
was likely very difficult.
❖❖ The Assembly had the final authority for voting for peace or
war, concluding treaties, debating and deciding size of military
expeditions, and so on. It could remove officials from office, and it
decided whether a new god or goddess could be incorporated into

the state pantheon, as well as whether a group of foreigners could
worship their own deity in private.
❖❖ However, there were also many issues it wouldn’t have dreamed

of debating, such as abortion or same-sex marriage. Those topics
didn’t come under the sensitive heading of religion, and they weren’t
a matter of public concern.
❖❖ The Assembly could work very quickly. For instance, it decided to

mount an expedition to invade Sicily in a single meeting. Another
meeting, just five days later, discussed the size of the expedition
and its financing.
❖❖ After the Assembly had reached a decision, it was usually inscribed

on a stone stêlê, a rectangular block of stone that was inserted into
the ground. This wasn’t true for every single decision, however: The
decision to go to war with the Peloponnesians in 431 BC wasn’t
inscribed on stone.
OTHER INPUT
❖❖ When it was having difficulty in making up its mind, the Assembly

would send ambassadors to Delphi, the seat of Apollo’s oracle, for
advice. Oracles were often notoriously difficult to interpret, which
means that the Demos would call upon the professional oracle
mongers, the chrêsmologoi, to elucidate.
❖❖ Even so, the interpretation of the chrêsmologoi did not always go

unchallenged. That’s what happened in 481, when the Athenians
received an oracle from Apollo telling them Zeus had given them “a
wooden wall, that would never be destroyed.” They were facing the
prospect of the Persian invasion and debating what action to take.
❖❖ Herodotus, who reported the debate, tells that some of the older
citizens took the wooden wall to be a thorn hedge that surrounded
the Acropolis, augmented perhaps by a wooden stockade. They
claimed that Apollo was therefore urging them to defend the site at
all cost. This, too, was the interpretation of the chrêsmologoi.

Herodotus

❖❖ Others, however, interpreted the wooden wall to mean the fleet
and said that if Athens opposed the Persians by sea they would be
victorious. This led to an impasse between the two sides for a time,
but in the end, the Athenians won a stunning naval victory with help
from other Greek states.
❖❖ Had they trusted in the wooden wall surrounding the Acropolis,

history would be very different. The Athenians had the largest fleet
at the time, and the Greek coalition fighting the Persians could never
have won without it.
Suggested Reading
Hansen, “The Organization of the Ekklesia.”
1. What are the dangers of entrusting a group of some 6,000 people with the
authority to determine public policy?
2. To what extent do the speeches in Thucydides’s accounts help us to

understand the Athenian Assembly?

8
The Council and
the Magistrates
T his lecture focuses on events in the agora,

the level open space to the north of the
Acropolis in Athens. The agora was the civil,
political, religious, legal, and commercial heart of
Athens. This was where the Council met, where
the archons had their offices, and where the
popular courts were. It was also where Athenian
citizens met in groups, randomly bumped into
one another, got their news, and mulled over the
burning political issues of the day.
THE COUNCIL CHAMBER
❖❖ The agora was place where the most important democratic institutions
were located. The most central of these was the council chamber, or
bouleuterion. It was located on the west side of the agora.
❖❖ The Athenian Boule was first constituted as the Council of 500 by

Cleisthenes in 508/7. Fifty members were elected by lot from each
of 10 tribes, and the minimum age requirement was 30. In any 30-
year period, 7,500 citizens would serve on the council.
❖❖ Attendance wasn’t compulsory for council members, so this raises

the possibility that it might at times have functioned as a clique with
the most politically engaged citizens taking control. Council members
debated among themselves and then presented subjects in the form
of an agenda to the Assembly, which had the final right of decision.
❖❖ Nothing could be discussed by the Assembly that hadn’t been

proposed by the Boule. The Boule presented a motion in the form

of a probouleuma. Sometimes the probouleuma carried the Boule’s
recommendation. The Boule also passed decrees in its own name
on routine matters of no particular significance, when asked to do
so by the Assembly.
❖❖ Each of the 10 tribes sat for one-tenth of the year as a kind of

standing executive committee. This period of time was known
as a prytany and the 50 executives were known as prytaneis, or
“presidents.” One-third of them formed a permanent sitting body, on
hand to deal with emergencies.
OTHER GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
❖❖ The archons were another organ of government. The institution

was at least as old as the 7th century BC. By the 5th century BC,
however, archons performed tasks that were judged not to require
any special qualifications or expertise. They weren’t particularly
powerful, though the office still carried prestige.
❖❖ The Demos was always ready to call archons to account. As a result,

many of them probably felt scared to make decisions.
❖❖ Lastly, there were the six thesmothêtai, or “lawmakers.” They were

in charge of the judiciary and the court system.
MINOR MAGISTRATES
❖❖ There were about 700 junior magistrates in addition to the archons.

Several hundred others were responsible for the administration
of the Delian League. All were appointed by lot from those
who volunteered.
❖❖ A person didn’t need any qualifications or experience to be appointed

to any of these posts. However, a person could hold each position
only once in a lifetime, and a person could hold only one position
at a time. That means it was impossible to build a political career or
gain influence by becoming a magistrate.
56 | Lecture 8 v The Council and the Magistrates

❖❖ The most important of the junior magistracies were the following:
♦♦ The agoranomoi, who guaranteed the quality of goods that

were on sale in the agora and kept order there.
♦♦ The metronomoi, who insured goods were of proper weight and

measure.
♦♦ The astynomoi, who made sure dead bodies were removed

from the streets and cleared away refuse.
♦♦ The hodopoioi, who maintained the roads.
♦♦ The hieropoioi, who supervised sacrifices.
TAXATION
❖❖ In the Athenian democratic system, wealthy and poor people weren’t

taxed. Only the extremely rich were taxed on a regular basis. They
were required to perform liturgies, i.e., be patrons of important and
expensive public programs. Examples include bearing the cost of
equipping and maintaining a gymnasium and its athletes; sponsoring
dramatic productions; and maintaining a trireme for a year.
❖❖ No fixed sum was laid down for a liturgy, but the assumption was
that the sponsors would compete with one another to provide the
best gymnasium, put on the best dramatic performance, or equip
the best trireme. Anthropologists call this phenomenon conspicuous
consumption.
❖❖ In addition, the state collected money by imposing a tax of two

percent on imports and exports. Since a huge amount of merchandise
and commodities passed through Athens’s commercial port in the
Piraeus, this was a very profitable source of revenue.
❖❖ Sex workers had to pay a tax on their earnings. There was also a tax
on certain land whenever it was leased out. Another tax was paid

monthly by metics to reside in Athens. Finally, the Athenian state
collected a great deal of money in tribute from its allies.
❖❖ The Athenians kept most of their money in a central state treasury,

rather like Fort Knox. In addition, there were temple treasuries,
the most important being the treasury of Athena. In time of need,
the state could borrow from the temple treasuries, as it did in the
Peloponnesian War.
STATE CARE
❖❖ The Athenian democracy didn’t see it as its duty to care for the
welfare of its citizens, though some scholars have argued that the
pay that jurors received for jury service might be seen as a kind of
state pension for older citizens.
❖❖ The state also took no responsibility for educating its citizens. There
was no state-sponsored, public education. The wealthy would have
given the job to an educated slave known as a paidagôgos, from
which we get the word “pedagogy.” Some would have sent their
sons to fee-paying schools, and the poor would have been left out.
❖❖ There were two areas of state support, however. First, the orphans
of those who died in the line of duty were cared for at the state’s
expense. State orphans received support until their 18th year.
❖❖ The second area of state support was for the disabled, who also
received a modest pension. The pension was barely enough
to support the recipient at the poverty level, so it was probably
assumed that their family would step in.
CONCLUSION
❖❖ Athenian citizenship was a tradeoff. There were freedoms, such as

the ability to criticize democracy, and there were protections, such
as protection from torture. However, there were also restrictions,
such as who a person could leave money to and engage in sexual
58 | Lecture 8 v The Council and the Magistrates

conduct with—adultery was prohibited. There were also obligations,
such as military service and participating in the Boule.
❖❖ There was also a limit to freedom of speech. In particular, the

Athenians weren’t happy with people who denied the existence of
gods, especially when they felt under threat. Athenian citizens were
also expected to undertake civic, religious, and other obligations in
their respective demes.
Suggested Reading
Forsdyke, Exile, Ostracism, and Democracy.
Rhodes, The Athenian Boule.
1. What was the exact relationship between the Assembly and the Council?
2. Are there any crises in world history that might have been resolved by
holding an ostracism?

9
The Citizens of Athens
S ome critics of Athenian democracy argue

that it wasn’t truly a democracy. They point
out that women and slaves weren’t regarded as
citizens. They also point out that the number of
people living within the borders of Attica who had
citizenship was no more than about one-fifth of
the total population. This lecture looks at who was
and wasn’t a citizen in an effort to determine how
representative Athenian democracy was.
DEFINING CITIZENSHIP
❖❖ Estimates of the size of the Greek citizen body vary considerably.

The British scholar Peter Rhodes estimates that at its peak,
there were around 60,000 citizens in 431 BC. Totaling up all the
citizens, women, slaves, children, and metics, Rhodes puts the
total population of Attica in 431 somewhere between 300,000
and 400,000.
❖❖ In Athens, initially, any male over the age of 18 whose father

was Athenian and mother was freeborn was a citizen. That was
irrespective of his mother’s race. In 451/0 BC, a law was passed
attributed to Pericles requiring the mother to be a freeborn Athenian
as well.
❖❖ It was also very difficult to become naturalized. That’s because

there was no path for a metic, a resident alien, to become a citizen.
If a metic man or woman married an Athenian, their children were
regarded not only as foreigners but also as illegitimate, meaning
they couldn’t inherit.
❖❖ One of few ways a person could become an Athenian citizen was if

they were a rich benefactor who gave benefaction in the form of cash
or corn. Grants of citizenship became marginally more common in
the 4th century BC.
RITES OF PASSAGE
❖❖ There were several steps that an Athenian male had to take before
he attained citizenship. In the first year of life, the male’s father
or legal guardian presented him to his phratry (“brotherhood”), a
hereditary organization comprising a number of families that traced
their roots to a common ancestor. This occurred at a festival in honor
of Apollo known as the Apatouria.
❖❖ The next step took place took place in the male’s third or fourth year
on the second day of a festival known as the Choes. This would
have been the first occasion the male encountered his entire peer

group, known as his hêlikiaia. This ceremony laid the foundations
for the development of civic, as opposed to family, identity.
❖❖ Around the age of 15, the male was reintroduced to his phratry, this
time for formal registration. Admission was dependent on a vote from
the phratry members, acknowledging his entitlement to citizenship.
❖❖ Between the ages of 18 and 20, the male was identified as an

ephêbos, or “someone on the verge of adulthood.” Ephebes served
in a separate unit in the army. From the 330s BC onward, all
Athenians aged 18 to 20 undertook two years of military training.
❖❖ It’s not clear whether Athenian girls underwent rites of passage.

The evidence is ambiguous. There was a festival known as the
Arkteia that young girls participated in, but if it was intended as a
rite of passage, it must have been restricted to a limited number of
aristocratic girls.
WOMEN
❖❖ Women had no political rights at all because they weren’t citizens

as such. That didn’t mean that women had no political influence
whatsoever. It’s entirely possible that some Athenians discussed
state business with their wives.
❖❖ Though some Athenian women could read, the majority probably only
received education in what might be called household management.
The average age at marriage was around 14 for girls, whereas a
man would be in his late 20s or early 30s. The age difference would
have contributed to the disparity and inequality.
❖❖ Most women couldn’t attend the symposium—that is, the drinking

sessions that men indulged in, where politics would often be
discussed. The only women present at such gatherings were the
hetaerae, meaning “female companions.”
62 | Lecture 9 v The Citizens of Athens

❖❖ Hetaerae were paid for their services, and though some were sex
workers, others were highly educated and hired because they had
opinions to offer and could hold their own in conversation with men.
Precisely how hetaerae were educated is unclear. It’s likely an older
hetaera took a younger one under her wing.
❖❖ Just as women had no political identity, they had no legal identity,

either. They couldn’t serve as jurors or act as plaintiffs in a lawsuit—a
male relative had to take on that role. A man could divorce his
wife simply by dismissing her. If a woman wanted to divorce her
husband, she had to seek the intercession of a male relative, who
would represent her in court.
❖❖ Women could be priestesses, however. Female deities such as

Athena were served by priestesses.
❖❖ Women had a life expectancy of 36 years, considerably less than

that of men at 45 years. This was largely due to the fact that childbirth
was extremely rigorous and dangerous. Scholars calculate that the
average woman bore 4.3 children, of whom 2.7 survived infancy.

SLAVES
❖❖ Slaves had even less political or legal identity than women. Many
Athenians owned several, and a few owned hundreds, whom they
employed in industry.
❖❖ Greek slaves, unlike American slaves, couldn’t be distinguished by

race. The exception is Sparta, whose slaves belonged to a subjected
race known as helots. However, many slaves were Greek, having
been captured in war, and were therefore indistinguishable except
by their clothing.
❖❖ Slaves participated in all kinds of occupations, such as agriculture,

manufacture, commerce, construction, mining, quarrying, tutoring,
and sex work. Some slaves enjoyed more freedom than others,
but as the historian Moses Finley put it, this was a “continuum
of unfreedom.”
❖❖ Slaves worked silver mines and marble quarries in Attica, which was
deadly work. Occasionally, the Demos called on slaves to serve in
the army.
❖❖ It’s impossible to know how many slaves existed in Athens in any

period. One ancient source mentions the figure of 400,000 at one
point, but this is certainly an exaggeration. However, there may
have been as many as 100,000 in Athens.
METICS
❖❖ Athens had by far the largest number of resident aliens, known

as metics, living within its borders of any Greek state. This
course’s professor estimates that just before the outbreak of the
Peloponnesian War in 431 BC, the total number of metics living in
Attica was around 30,000.
❖❖ Metics could not buy land or inherit land in Attica. Instead, they
engaged in trade, manufacture, and banking. In times of war, they
were obligated to serve in infantry or navy. Their service in the navy

was critical; for example, Athens’s fleet depended heavily on metic
rowers. However, they were free to leave Athens during wartime if
they chose.
❖❖ Each month, they paid the metic tax. This would have contributed
significantly to Athens’s coffers. Those who didn’t pay the tax were
sold into slavery.
THE DISABLED
❖❖ One other group was, if not excluded, certainly at a disadvantage

when it came to exercising their rights: the disabled. A very large
percentage of the Greek population was disabled. There were five
main reasons for the high incidence of disability in the ancient world:
childhood diseases, accidents, the low level of healthcare, injuries in
battle, and more rapid aging than in modern times.
❖❖ A disabled person in Athens’s democracy might have been confined

to the home, kept out of sight. A very civic-minded individual might
perhaps have struggled to have their voice heard and play a part
in politics.
❖❖ Accounts tell of a person named Neocleides, partially sighted,

who was mocked when he stood up in the Assembly. Additionally,
deformed people had to deal with the highly prejudicial belief that
this was a judgement from the gods.
THE EFFECTS OF DEMOCRACY
❖❖ Questions remain about Athenian democracy, such as: What was

the impact of the democracy on the non-political classes? Was it
better to be a slave, woman, or a disabled person under Athenian
democracy than under an oligarchical system of government?
❖❖ There’s no first-person evidence from either slaves or women or the

disabled, so we can’t know for certain. Women and the elderly seem
to have had a better deal in Sparta than they did in Athens, but the

disabled in Sparta had slim chances of survival. Supposedly unfit
Spartan babies were allegedly exposed and left to die.
Suggested Reading
Garland, The Eye of the Beholder.
Hansen, Democracy and Demography.
Osborne, Athens and Athenian Democracy.
Wood, Peasant-Citizen and Slave.
1. How democratic was Athenian democracy?
2. Should the Athenians be condemned outright for their exclusion of women

from the political and legal spheres?

10
“The Empire You
Hold Is a Tyranny”
A paradox existed at the heart of Athenian

democracy. The institution depended
on wealth and leisure, and thus on exploitation
of others, such as slaves and fellow Greeks.
This lecture looks at how Athenians, who were
members of a democratic society that espoused
egalitarianism, exploited their fellow Greeks.
GREECE IN ANTIQUITY
❖❖ Ancient Greece wasn’t a continuous land mass, with clearly defined

borders like any modern nation-state. Ancient Greece certainly
included all of what is modern Greece today, though the Greeks
didn’t think of the inhabitants of ancient Macedonia, the region
around modern-day Thessaloniki, as pure Greeks. Greeks of the 5th
and 4th centuries BC, looked down at the Macedonians, at Philip II,
and Alexander the Great, whom they thought of as semibarbarians.
❖❖ Greece was more than just the mainland and the surrounding
islands. There were Greek settlements or colonies all over the
Mediterranean, as far west as Spain, as far south as Tunisia and
Egypt, as far north as the southern shore of the Black Sea, and
as far east as the coast of Turkey. There were hundreds of these
settlements, all separated from one another and most of them
located on the coast for trading purposes.
❖❖ Even the mainland region wasn’t unified. Greece has a very

mountainous landscape with few large open spaces. This lent itself
to the separation of communities, all of whom jealously guarded
their independence from one another.
THE FOUNDATION OF THE DELIAN LEAGUE
❖❖ The Greeks were a maritime people, especially the Athenians. They

acquired their fleet in 483/2, which was two or three years before
the Persian invasion under King Xerxes. Five years later, in 478/7,
they assumed head of a maritime alliance called the Delian League.
❖❖ Those who joined the confederacy were the cities on the islands in
the Aegean, the cities on the coast of Thrace, and the cities along
the coast of modern-day Turkey. There were some 200 members in
all. Among the most important were Chios, Euboea, Lesbos, Naxos,
Samos, and Thasos, which were all large islands in the Aegean.
❖❖ The league’s members didn’t have to fight on each other’s behalf, but
they did have to fight on Athens’s. The confederacy was established
68 | Lecture 10 v “The Empire You Hold Is a Tyranny”

first to offer military protection to its allies against the Persians,
liberate Greeks under Persian control, and seek reparations from
the Persians for the damage they caused. (The Persians never
paid.) The original mission of the league was one matter, but it
eventually turned into the Athenian empire.
❖❖ Athens was the most powerful member, owing to its top-of-the-line

fleet and ability to dominate meetings when the group met on Delos.
Early on, allies found that Athens was not prepared to tolerate
defection—opting out wasn’t an option. The islands of Naxos and
Thasos tried to secede in the early 460s, but they were besieged,
defeated, and forced back into the alliance.
THE TREASURY
❖❖ The most decisive moment in the conversion of the confederacy

into an empire was the transfer of its treasury from Delos to Athens
in 454/3 BC. The ostensible reason for this was the failure of an
expedition that the Athenians sent to Egypt in 460.

❖❖ In that year, Egypt revolted from Persia and asked for help from
Athens. Athens agreed and dispatched an expedition. It was initially
successful, but it ended in disaster in 454.
❖❖ The disaster was used as an excuse to transfer the treasury to

Athens. The Athenians argued that Delos, a tiny exposed island
in the Aegean, was now too vulnerable. Cynics would say their
motives were self-interested: The defeat gave them an excuse to
seize control of the treasury.
❖❖ In 450, peace was concluded with Persia. Scholars refer to it as

the Peace of Callias, named for its chief Athenian negotiator. It’s
unclear whether there was a formal peace—sources are scarce—
but regardless, relations with Persia improved.
❖❖ The Delian League continued to exist, but the reason for its
establishment was gone. From that date onward, the Delian
League can be more accurately defined as the Athenian empire.
That’s because the permanent exaction of tribute could only be
justified logically so long as Athens was on a permanent war footing
against Persia.
❖❖ From 449 BC onward, there were clear sign of unrest among allies.
Inscriptions from this time are a huge resource for scholars. There’s
no evidence of payment of tribute to Athenian exchequer for the
year 449/8. For the year 447/6, there is evidence of back payments
and disorder.
❖❖ It was also around this time that work began on Parthenon and other
building projects in Athens, paid for by tribute from the allies. This
surely grated on the allies’ nerves.
PEACE?
❖❖ In 446/5, a five-year truce that had been concluded with Sparta

came to an end. In the same year, the Athenians were defeated on
land at Coronea, northwest of Attica, by the local people called the
Boeotians. The Athenians had previously forced the Boeotians to
join the Delian League, and now they had to let them go.

❖❖ Henceforth, the Athenians concentrated exclusively on building a
maritime empire. They entered a time of peace with the Spartans,
who weren’t in the least capable of challenging them at sea. As it
turned out, the peace would last only 15 years. From the mid-440s
onward, the Greek world became increasingly divided into two
camps under leadership of Athens and Sparta.
REVOLTS
❖❖ Around 446, Euboea, the large island off the northeastern coast of
Attica, revolted. The Athenians under Pericles regained control of
the island and expelled the inhabitants of a major city on the island
called Histiaea. In their place, they settled 2,000 Athenian settlers.
❖❖ These settlers now owned land in Histiaea, but they retained their
Athenian citizenship. The Athenians set up a number of settlements
of this sort in territories that belonged to peoples whom they had
subjugated.
❖❖ This was a clever way to exercise control without actually setting up a

garrison. Athens put down another rebellion, this one Persian-backed,
from the island of Samos. The Athenians used brutal measures,
but did not install a democracy in the aftermath. They weren’t on a
mission to espouse democracy as an enlightened system.
THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
❖❖ When the Peloponnesian War broke out in 431, few allies sought
to revolt. The exception was the city of Mytilene on the island of
Lesbos, which revolted in 428/7. This was the first time that the
Athenians considered executing all the men in a city that had
revolted from them.
❖❖ In 421, however, they did precisely that to Scione, a city in northern

Greece. They executed all the men and enslaved the women and
children. The American ancient historian Bob Connor describes it as
one of the most notorious events of the war.

❖❖ Later, in 412, Chios and other states revolted in the wake of the
calamitous defeat of the expedition the Athenians sent to conquer
Sicily. The Athenian empire finally ceased to exist in 405, when the
Athenians were defeated by Peloponnesians in a naval battle at
Aegospotami in the Hellespont, modern-day Turkey.
BENEFITS OF EMPIRE
❖❖ Before its end, the Athenians benefited in numerous ways from their
empire. First and foremost, they received massive funds in the form
of tribute from their allies. They also exacted harbor dues from allies
using the Piraeus dock facility. Athenian silver coinage became the
chief currency in use throughout empire.
❖❖ The Athenians also imposed their own system of weights and

measures by the terms of the Standards Decree. The date of this
is unclear: It might have been as early as 440 or as late as 410.
Additionally, the empire was source of indirect enrichment. It was
a huge market for export of Athenian olive oil and high-end pottery.
❖❖ The Athenians acquired land whenever they felt justified on account of

bad behavior on the part of their allies. They sent allotment holders—
Athenian citizens—to occupy it. Many of them would have been poor
citizens who now had the opportunity to enrich themselves.
ASSESSMENT
❖❖ The title of this lecture, “The Empire You Hold Is a Tyranny,” is a

quote from the historian Thucydides. He put these words into the
mouth of Pericles in 430. Pericles said to the Athenians, “The empire
you hold is a tyranny. It may have been wrong to acquire it, but it
would certainly be dangerous to let it go.”
❖❖ By calling the empire a tyranny, Pericles was rubbing the Athenians’

noses in the dirt. He was also correct, however, that letting it go
would be dangerous. Ending an empire is never a straightforward
option in geopolitics.

Suggested Reading
Low, The Athenian Empire.
Ma, “Did the Athenian Empire Promote Democracy?”
1. Do you agree with Thucydides’s statement that it may have been wrong
for Athens to have acquired an empire but that would it have been stupid
for Athens to let it go?
2. Should the Athenians be condemned for running an empire?

11
The Age of Pericles
T his lecture examines the career of Pericles,

the leading Athenian politician in the period
of 443–429 BC. It was Pericles who assisted
Ephialtes in his reform of the Areopagus. It was
he, too, who guided Athens toward extreme
democracy. The chief sources for this lecture are
the historian Thucydides, the Athenaiôn Politeia,
and the author Plutarch.
PERICLES THE PERSON
❖❖ Pericles was an Alcmaeonid on his mother’s side—that is, a member

of the noble kin group that was seen as cursed. He’s described as
having a very large head; he may even have had a cranial deformity.
Thucydides depicts him as a sober-minded and clear-thinking man
who kept the mob in check.
❖❖ One of his virtues was his incorruptibility. When the Spartan king
Archidamus first invaded Attica, he spared Pericles’s estate, hoping
to get him into trouble with the Demos by suggesting that he and
Pericles were allies. Pericles responded by making a present of his
estate to the people. He was also an impressive speaker.
❖❖ However, Pericles’s life was not without scandal. He divorced his

Athenian wife and cohabited with a woman from Miletus (in northwest
Turkey) named Aspasia. She was a good conversationalist and had
sound judgment, and she gave advice to Pericles. Some Athenians
suspected that Aspasia manipulated Pericles for her own political
ends. This suspicion was intensified when Athens went to war with
Samos over a quarrel involving Miletus. The truth is unclear.
EARLY CAREER
❖❖ Pericles’s career lasted from 462 to 429 BC. Following the

assassination of Ephialtes, Pericles was certainly the leader of the
democratic faction, but he still had a very powerful enemy in an
aristocrat called Cimon. Pericles was probably the politician who
introduced payment for Athenians serving on juries, perhaps as a
move against Cimon, who was very wealthy and who used bribes
to exercise power.
❖❖ In 451/0, a law attributed to Pericles was passed limiting citizenship

to men with an Athenian mother and father. In 448, it was Pericles
who recommended that the surplus tribute from the allies be used to
finance the rebuilding of temples destroyed by Persians.

Pericles
76 | 11 v Athenian DemocracyAn Experiment for the Ages

❖❖ His opponent in this matter was a politician named Thucydides
(not to be confused with the historian). Pericles prevailed and the
opposing politician was ostracized. Plutarch claims Pericles went
virtually unchallenged from this event to his death in 429, though
that is highly debatable. He still had political enemies.
PERICLES IN POWER
❖❖ Pericles eventually became a stratêgos—a general—and effectively

was in charge of Athenian foreign policy. That policy imposed harsh
terms on disaffected allies and advocated the use of allied tribute
for Athens’s own civic needs. It also encouraged Athenian imperial
expansion. Pericles differed sharply
from Cimon in this respect: Whereas
Cimon was friendly to Sparta, Pericles
saw Sparta as a rival to Athenian power.
Cimon
❖❖ Though Pericles had no real political
challenger of his stature after Thucydides
was ostracized, he still had his enemies,
who attacked his friends through the law
courts. Pericles’s friends included the
sophist Protagoras, the sculptor Phidias,
and the philosopher Anaxagoras.
❖❖ Phidias was the supervisor of the

temple-building project that Pericles
initiated. He was accused of stealing
gold that was intended for a great
statue. This was a clever way to get at
Pericles because Phidias was a close
friend of Pericles and also responsible
for the project’s finances.
❖❖ Phidias was acquitted, though he later became the object of attack

by a decree introduced by someone named Diopeithes. He was
charged with impiety and had to go into exile. The philosopher
Anaxagoras suffered a similar fate.

❖❖ Aspasia, too, was accused of impiety, as well as of procuring
women for Pericles’s personal enjoyment. Reportedly, Pericles
came to court and broke down in tears to plead for her acquittal—a
successful move.
WAR
❖❖ There can be little doubt that it was Pericles’s intransigence towards

the Spartans that caused the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War,
even though, technically, it was Sparta that declared war on Athens.
Pericles argued against Athens making any concessions in the
dispute that Sparta had with Athens over some territorial claims.
The Spartans held Pericles responsible for the war.
❖❖ There was certainly some strong opposition in Athens to going

to war, but Pericles managed to override it. That’s because his
authority in 431, the year the war broke out, was massive.
❖❖ Pericles’s strategy was essentially passive. He believed that the

Athenian fleet was all-powerful and that as long as the Athenians
didn’t engage the Spartans on land, they would be invincible.
Notably, a plague reduced Athens’s population by up to a third in
the early years of the war. This may have been exacerbated by
Pericles’s persuading Athenians to abandon the countryside and
retreat inside the city’s walls.
FALL, RISE, AND DEATH
❖❖ Following the invasion of Attica by the Spartans in the first year of

the war, the Demos became inflamed toward Pericles. They were
forced to observe their lands being ravaged and were unable to do
anything about it.
❖❖ Pericles realized that the Demos was on the verge of revoking his
policy of remaining inside the walls and that they wanted to engage
the Peloponnesians in what he judged would lead to certain defeat.
For 40 days, he refused to call a meeting of the Assembly.
78 | Lecture 11 v The Age of Pericles

❖❖ Soon after he was back in favor with the Demos, which chose him to
deliver the speech over the dead who had fallen in the first year of
the war. The next year, however, the Demos became even angrier
with Pericles than they had been before. The Peloponnesians raided
their lands for the second time. Plague was also a concern.
❖❖ The Demos tried to make peace with the Spartans, but to no avail.
Pericles succeeded in dissuading the Athenians from sending
ambassadors to Sparta to make peace, but they were still angry with
him. The anger didn’t dissipate until they removed Pericles from his
post of stratêgos. Pericles eventually died as a result of the plague
in 429.
PERICLES’S LEGACY
❖❖ After Pericles’s death, the historian Thucydides writes that Athens

fell under control of demagogues. He draws a line between
Pericles, who was above the fray, and the demagogues, who were
contemptible crowd pleasers. However, corruption had already
been going on under Pericles.
❖❖ Regardless, the age of Pericles had many unique traits. It was a

period of infancy for the radical democracy, when it was still reliant
on aristocrats. That’s to say, it was paternalistic in some ways. It was
also a period when Athens took a major step towards becoming an
imperial power, and in doing so, effectively enslaved other Greeks.
❖❖ During Pericles’s time, classical sculpture reached its height.

Sophocles, Euripides, and other literary giants were boosting
Athens’s cultural prominence. Like the tyrant Peisistratus before
him, Pericles expanded Athens’s role as a center of Greek culture.
His age had a specific character, and after the outbreak of war and
Pericles’s death, Athens was never the same again.

Suggested Reading
De Romilly, “Pericles.”
Kagan, Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy.
———, Thucydides.
Podlecki, Pericles and His Circle.
Vogt, “The Portrait of Pericles in Thucydides.”
1. Pericles is often referred to as a statesman. Does he deserve that title?
2. Do you share Thucydides’s high opinion of Pericles?
80 | Lecture 11 v The Age of Pericles

12
Public Speaking in Athens
A thenian society was much more orally

based and debate oriented than modern
American society. Having any kind of public
identity required skill in public speaking.
This lecture looks at the different venues
and methods Athenians used in their public-
speaking endeavors. It draws on several
sources, especially the historian Thucydides,
and focuses on three important debates.
OVERVIEW OF PUBLIC SPEAKING
❖❖ There were numerous venues where Athenians could show off their
oratorical skills. Examples include the Assembly, the chamber of the
Council, law courts, and drinking parties.
❖❖ Rhetoric was taught by the sophists. The sophists have a bad

reputation, largely because Socrates was so hostile to them. He
objected to them on a number of grounds. Socrates believed that
philosophers should give their services for free—a nice idea but
unlikely proposition.
THE MYTILENEAN DEBATE
❖❖ A notable debate took place in the early years of the Peloponnesian

War, according to the account of Thucydides. Mytilene, one of
Athens’ allies, revolted in 428 BC. Mytilene was a polis on the island
of Lesbos off the Turkish coast. It was ruled by an oligarchy, and it
was one of the few allies that still contributed ships to the common
fleet at this date.
❖❖ Before they revolted, the Mytileneans were promised help from

the Spartans. That help never materialized, and their revolt was
suppressed in 427. The Athenian Assembly met and voted to
execute all the male citizens and enslave the women and children.
❖❖ A trireme was dispatched to carry out the order, but during the night,
the Athenians had a change of mind. Many of them now regretted
the harsh punishment they had voted, so an extraordinary second
debate took place the very next day.
❖❖ A speaker named Cleon spoke first, reminding the Athenians they

run a tyrannical empire and arguing for the death of the Mytileneans.
Next, Diodotus rose to speak. (It may be that Diodotus was invented
by Thucydides.) Diodotus argued that a full execution would
discourage the region from showing loyalty in the future.
❖❖ In the end, Diodotus’s arguments won out. The Assembly adopted
82 | Lecture 12 v Public Speaking in Athens

his reversal of their previous decision, and a second trireme was
immediately dispatched to Mytilene. The rowers were promised
rewards if they arrived in time to countermand the first order, which
they did. Some of the Mytileneans were spared, but over 1,000
people were still executed.
THE DEBATE OF 425 BC
❖❖ Another notable debate took place in 425 BC. The Athenians were
under the command of a general called Demosthenes—not to be
confused with the politician by the same name of the following
century. They had established a fort at Pylos, which was at the
southwestern tip of the Peloponnese. They intended to use it as a
base from which to raid Spartan territory.
❖❖ As soon as they learned of this, the Spartans returned from their

annual invasion of Attica and landed a force on a small island
opposite called Sphacteria. They intended to besiege the Athenians,
but instead found themselves besieged by an Athenian fleet.

❖❖ The Spartans offered peace terms, but the Athenians, at the
prompting of Cleon, refused. The siege dragged on, with the
Athenians becoming demoralized as they were unable to dislodge the
Spartans. A debate about this matter occurred in Athens, featuring a
heated exchange between Cleon and a highly experienced general
named Nicias.
❖❖ Nicias, realizing that Cleon was in a vulnerable position, volunteered

to relinquish his command to this braggart, who thought it would be
child’s play to capture the Spartans. At first Cleon thought Nicias
was joking, but Nicias kept repeating his offer.
❖❖ According to Thucydides’s account, the Assembly eventually

appointed Cleon general, though he had never held the office before.
The Demos, if Thucydides is accurate, gave Cleon the command
merely in order to reveal the shallowness of his boastfulness.
Surprisingly, Cleon delivered: He captured the surviving Spartans
and brought them all to Athens within 20 days.
THE SICILIAN DEBATE
❖❖ The final debate this lecture discusses took place in 415 BC, when
the Athenians were considering whether to invade Sicily. It was a
very bold step that ultimately resulted in a terrible defeat for Athens.
The decision to send an expedition has already been voted on and
agreed upon at a debate five days previously.
❖❖ The second debate, which Thucydides recorded, was ostensibly

called to decide the size of the expedition. There were just two
speakers. First to speak was Nicias, who had opposed the expedition
in the first place. Instead of talking about the expedition’s size at the
second debate, he tried to convince the Athenians to change their
minds and vote against the expedition altogether.
❖❖ He argued that the Athenians had been too hasty and that the
Sicilian invasion would be an unwise decision because they already
had nearby enemies in the Spartans. Additionally, Sicily was a long
way off and would be difficult to rule even if they conquered it.
84 | Lecture 12 v Public Speaking in Athens

❖❖ He also launched an ill-advised ad hominem attack on Alcibiades,
his political opponent, though he doesn’t mention him by name.
He tried to belittle Alcibiades by describing him as “too young to
command.” Nicias also told the older men not to be intimidated by
the younger into voting for the expedition.
❖❖ The vote went against Nicias, which led to the question originally
on the agenda—the size of the fleet—being debated. Alcibiades
extolled his own public service and then refuted Nicias’s claim,
saying that Sicily was weak and that the Peloponnesians were no
match for the Athenians. Moreover, he said that the empire must
never stop expanding.
❖❖ After listening to Alcibiades, the Demos became even more

eager for war. Nicias tried to deter them one last time, but failed.
Thucydides wrote, “Now that most people were enthusiastic, the
few that weren’t were afraid of appearing unpatriotic by raising their
hands in opposition, so they kept quiet.” This probably wasn’t the
only occasion when a minority was afraid to make its opinion heard.
Suggested Reading
Finley, “Athenian Demagogues.”
Hansen, “The Debate in the Ekklesia.”
Hornblower, “The Speeches” in Thucydides.
Pelling, “Thucydides’s Speeches.”
1. How important is it today whether politicians are good public speakers?
2. What made a speech in the Assembly persuasive?

13
Pericles’s Funeral Speech
T his lecture discusses the most important

ceremony performed in Athens, namely the
ceremony each year honoring those who laid
down their lives for their country. The ceremony
was accompanied by a funeral speech (epitaphios
logos). These events formed the patrios nomos,
meaning the “ancestral custom.” In particular, this
lecture focuses on the ceremony that occurred in
431 BC.
Ceramicus
THE CEREMONY
❖❖ In the fall of 431 BC, Athenians commemorated the sacrifice of those

who perished in first year of the Peloponnesian War. The ceremony
took place on the west side of the city, just outside the city wall, in
the area known as the Ceramicus. This was the foremost cemetery
in Athens. The ashes of the dead to be praised were stored in 10
coffins at the ceremony.
❖❖ As Thucydides describes it, a man chosen by the Demos climbed

onto a platform to deliver the eulogy on behalf of the war dead. Each
year, the speech was intended to be consoling and inspirational.
This year, the man chosen was Pericles.
❖❖ Pericles began by talking of the difficulty of praising the dead, even

though he conceded that he must. His note of reluctance was out of
keeping with the solemnity of the occasion.
❖❖ Then came the encomium of the ancestors—that is, all those who
contributed to Athens's greatness. This part was very perfunctory.

After that was the encomium of the previous generation, whom
Pericles singles out for more praise than the ancestors.
❖❖ The next part was by no means traditional. Instead of praising the

dead in the coffins before him, Pericles offered an encomium of the
Athenian way of life and of its constitution (alternately known as
its politeia). After this long middle section, there followed a short
section in which Pericles finally offered a few words in praise of the
dead. This part seemed platitudinous and not heartfelt.
❖❖ Finally, Pericles turned to address the living. He told them they must
become “lovers of Athens” so that they will be ready to give their
lives, too. He also addressed various sections of his audience. First,
he comforted the parents of the dead, urging those who are still
young to have more children.
❖❖ Next, he urged those who were past childbearing years to take pride
in the fame of their departed sons. Then, he had a few words for the
sons and brothers of the dead. Lastly, and notoriously, he offered a
few words of advice to the widows of the war dead. He advised they
were at their best when they were socially invisible.
THE TRUTH
❖❖ Thucydides’s account of Pericles’s speech raises multiple questions,

the first of which is: How accurate is Thucydides’s description of
the speech? It’s likely he was there to hear the speech; however,
no Greek or Roman historian held himself to the same accuracy
standard as their modern counterparts at least try to do. Thucydides
also introduced his description in a way that opened the window for
a certain degree of inventiveness.
❖❖ Another question is this: How accurate and truthful was the picture
of Athenian democracy that Pericles painted? His speech offered
an idealized portrait of democratic Athens, one meant to contrast
Athens with the enemy Spartans.
❖❖ Some of the claims he made are true, but others were lies. Among
the truthful claims were that Athens provided cultural boosts through
88 | Lecture 13 v Pericles’s Funeral Speech

activities like games, which was true: Athens was the cultural capital
of the world.
❖❖ Another true claim was that Athens was open to the world. It had the
largest population of foreigners living in its midst of any Greek city.
Pericles also praised Athens’s deserved status as a trading hub,
and rightfully cited Athens’s high expectations of civic participation.
Finally, he cited Athenian empire building, which caused havoc but
also boosted Athens’s power.
THE FALSEHOODS
❖❖ Pericles’s address also stretched the truth in some instances. Take,

for example, his claim about poverty: He claimed that lowliness of
social status never prevented Athenians from contributing to the
state. That’s certainly not true if Pericles meant that anyone could
get the ear of the speaker in the Assembly, for instance. However,
the statement was true in the sense that anyone, whatever their
socioeconomic status, could for instance be a member of the Boule.
❖❖ Second, Pericles claimed Athens did good deeds out of faith in their
liberal values. Athens did do some good deeds, but they were also
self-interested.
❖❖ Pericles also made some unverifiable claims. One was that

Athenians stayed out of their neighbors’ affairs, but this can’t be
proven. Another claim that likewise can’t be proven was that
Athenians obeyed the law out of respect for the laws and those in
power. It’s impossible to know why people actually obey laws.
BURYING THE WAR DEAD
❖❖ The custom of returning the fallen from the battlefield has not been
observed throughout history. Scholars cannot even assume that all
Greek city-states prioritized it in the same way the Athenians did.
❖❖ Throughout history, the war dead have, for the most part, been
buried in hastily dug pits or trenches on the battlefield, no doubt with

the minimum of ceremony. In
America, the Civil War that
changed all that.
❖❖ General Ulysses S. Grant

wrote after the Battle of Shiloh,
a particularly bloody battle
fought in 1862 in Tennessee,
that, “It would have been
possible to walk across the
clearing, in any direction,
stepping only on dead bodies, Ulysses S. Grant
without a foot touching the
ground.” For the first time,
images of the war dead
appeared in newspapers, and
this horrified people.
❖❖ Abraham Lincoln authorized

the creation of national cemeteries to bury the dead. Arlington
National Cemetery was established on Robert E. Lee’s estate near
Washington DC.
❖❖ In the two World Wars, however, it was impossible to return the

bodies of the war dead. There were far too many of them: over
116,000 in World War I and over 292,000 in World War II. They were
buried on the battlefield. However, in the Korean War and Vietnam
War, the remains of the dead were mostly returned home.
❖❖ Americans differ from the Athenians in certain ways when it comes

to honoring those who die at war. Rather than commemorating all of
a single year’s deceased, Americans recognize all of their war dead
on a single day: Memorial Day, at the end of May.
❖❖ There is also no single speech to honor them. The last time such
a speech was delivered was at Gettysburg in November 1863, four
months after the Union victory over the Confederates.

Arlington National Cemetery
❖❖ That was when Edward Everett, the most distinguished orator of his
day, delivered a two-hour oration in which he compared the Battle
of Gettysburg to the one fought at Marathon. However, the most
remembered part of this event is Abraham Lincoln’s dedicatory
remarks, which ended with the resolution that “government of the
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
❖❖ The American historian Garry Wills has noted a number of parallels

between Pericles’s speech and Lincoln’s, including the commitment
to democracy and the urging of survivors to carry on the struggle.
❖❖ Americans also celebrate all those who served in the military on

Veterans Day. The Athenians didn’t have any equivalent ceremony
because they all served.
SUMMARY
❖❖ Pericles’s funeral speech is a rousing read. There’s no other passage

documenting the supposed benefits and virtues of democracy that
is more uplifting and inspirational. If Pericles said anything remotely

resembling the words that Thucydides put into his mouth, it was
likely an incredible speech. It would have been very different from
the general run-of-the-mill patriotic drivel that most orators delivered
on this occasion.
❖❖ Pericles was, in essence, celebrating and trumpeting Athens.

Though much of the description is imaginary, one cannot help but
read the speech and think they’d love to live in a society like the one
Pericles described.
❖❖ However, Thucydides and Pericles surely knew that the real Athens
was very different from the portrait they painted. Under the pressures
of disease, war, and internal stress, communal values disintegrated,
respect for the law crumbled, and a very different side of man—the
political animal—eventually emerged.
Suggested Reading
Christ, The Limits of Altruism in Democratic Athens.
Ziolkowski, Thucydides and the Tradition of Funeral Speeches at Athens.
1. Is Pericles’s funeral speech merely an exercise in Athenian self-promotion?
2. Do you find Pericles’s funeral speech moving, inspiring, verbose, pompous,

or mendacious?

14
Democracy under Duress
T hroughout its history, there were moments

when the Athenian democracy behaved
admirably. However, there were other moments
when democracy did not bring out the best in
people. Human nature was primarily at fault—not
democracy in and of itself—but nevertheless, this
lecture looks at some of those darker moments.
Thucydides
94 | Lecture 14 v Democracy under Duress

MIGRATION TO THE CITY
❖❖ This lecture begins by looking at how the Athenians conducted

themselves in the wake of a terrible outbreak of plague during
the Peloponnesian War. In October or November of 431 BC, the
Peloponnesians and the Athenians suspend hostilities. Everyone,
except those involved in sieges, went back home, as was the norm
in the Greek world at the end of the fighting season.
❖❖ Earlier, the Athenians had abandoned the countryside. This means

that around 50,000 to 100,000 people had decamped to Athens and
were living in extremely unhygienic conditions during the hottest
months of the year—that is, April to September. Thucydides, the
sole source for this event, didn’t record how the refugees lived.
❖❖ When the refugees returned to their homes in the fall of 431, the
urban areas would have been littered with filth. Athens, in other
words, had become a giant slum. It’s doubtful the Demos made any
attempt to clean the mess up.
THE PLAGUE
❖❖ In the spring of the second year of the war, 430 BC, the cycle
began again. The refugees returned, living in conditions that were
even worse than they had been before. In the summer, according
to Thucydides, the Spartans and their allied forces invaded Attica.
Soon after, a plague broke out.
❖❖ Most likely, this plague was caused by Athens’s water supply

becoming polluted, especially in the port of Piraeus, which had no
streams and which depended on reservoirs that caught rainwater.
Thucydides described the plague as terribly damaging—it had
devastating psychological effects and damaged Athens’s self-image
as a great city.
❖❖ There had been plagues before, but this one was different in its
ferocity. Neither medical intervention nor appeal to the gods had any
effect. As for the identity of the plague itself, that is unknown, though

scholars have made various suggestions. The leading contenders
are typhoid, typhus, and viral hemorrhagic fever.
❖❖ Thucydides reported that so many people died of the plague that

the living were no longer adequate to conduct proper ceremonies
on behalf of the dead. Sanctuaries became full of dead bodies.
Lawlessness prevailed.
❖❖ It may be tempting to view this event as a rebuke of democracy,

but it’s not clear that was Thucydides’s intent at all. No matter what
form of government had been in power when the plague broke out,
it would have been quite incapable of responding to the challenge in
a coherent and organized manner. The society was overwhelmed.
CIVIL WAR IN DEMOCRATIC CORCYRA
❖❖ A second example of democracy under duress occurred on the

island of Corcyra, which is modern-day Corfu, off the northwest
coast of Greece. In 427 BC, civil strife occurred there. Corcyra was
a democracy, just like Athens, in that year.
❖❖ The civil strife in Corcyra was prompted by the pressure of war upon
the political, economic, and social fabric. A similar situation occurred
elsewhere during the course of the Peloponnesian War whenever
the pressure became unendurable, as Thucydides noted.
❖❖ The democratic faction was in power on Corcyra, but there deep

divisions between it and the oligarchic faction. Four years of war
had exacerbated these divisions. In 427 BC, the minority oligarchic
faction sought to bring in the Peloponnesians in the hope of detaching
Corcyra from the Delian League and its alliance with Athens.
❖❖ In response, the democratic faction called upon the Athenians to

repel the oligarchs, so that it could maintain its power. Under the
influence of hatred and fear, both sides committed acts of atrocity.
The oligarchs burst into a meeting of the Council and killed
councilors and private individuals, some 60 in all. The democratic
faction responded by committing equal atrocities.

❖❖ Thucydides recounted fathers killing their sons and people being
walled up and left to die in the temple of Dionysus. This strife
was also used as a pretext for people to settle private vendettas.
However, Thucydides didn’t use the example as an indictment of
democracy. On the contrary, he uses it to indict humanity.
CONCLUSION
❖❖ It’s important to note that the incidents discussed in this lecture

are not signifiers of what happens specifically to democracy under
duress. Any society operating under any system of government
is likely to crack when facing duress. Democracy is always an
experiment in restraint, civic mindedness, tolerance, obedience to
the law, and respect for tradition.
❖❖ The Athenians were completely unprepared for the plague. At

some level, even though their understanding of infection was very
minimal, they must have known that hosting the rural population
was to blame. Thucydides didn’t mention any hostility between the

rural and urban populations, but tensions must have existed and
occasionally erupted into violence.
❖❖ To an extent, the people continued to act with restraint. They held

Pericles chiefly responsible for their woes, but they didn’t execute
him. They merely stripped him of his office of general and fined him.
That can be called civilized.
❖❖ The civil war on Corcyra was far more horrific. It was not, however,
the sole responsibility of the democratic government. The oligarchs
also played their part, and if the situation had been reversed, it is
very likely that they would have committed crimes of equal enormity.
Suggested Reading
Connor, Thucydides (book 3).
Price, Thucydides and Internal War.
1. What specific weaknesses did Greek democracy manifest at times of
crisis?
2. Is Thucydides’s description of the plague a condemnation of democracy?

15
The Culture of
Athenian Democracy
T he culture of Athenian democracy is a

very broad topic. Culture encompasses
both artistic achievement and, more vaguely,
collective behavior as the result of training,
education, and other forms of social intercourse.
This lecture examines Athenian democratic
culture in both senses.
THE PERICLEAN BUILDING PROGRAM
❖❖ The first topic of this lecture is the public buildings that Athens
erected in the second half of the 5th century BC. These demonstrate
not only exquisite artistic taste but also the highest level of civic
pride with respect to religion and the celebration of the gods.
❖❖ Pericles, in 448 BC, persuaded Athenians to devote surplus

funds to restoring the Acropolis to the glory it had attained before
the Persians burned its temples to the ground. The Acropolis still
dominates modern-day Athens. In its heyday, it would have been a
dazzling polychrome experience.
❖❖ Originally, the Acropolis had been a defensive rock. It had served as

a bulwark at the time of the Persian invasion. One of its buildings,
the Propylaea, recalled the era when the Acropolis was defensible.
It partially obscured the Parthenon, the temple of Athena Parthenos,
until visitors passed through its gates to the other side.
THE PARTHENON
❖❖ The Parthenon is the preeminent symbol of the Periclean age. It

stands on southern edge of the artificially leveled platform on top of the
Acropolis. It features fluted columns, and all of its lines have a subtle
curve. Around the four sides of the exterior wall runs a continuous
frieze. The most famous part of the frieze is the cavalcade, which
shows naked horsemen riding as many as six abreast.
❖❖ The culminating moment on the frieze, directly above the temple

door, is one of deep reverence. It seems to be the removal or
replacement of the peplos, a woolen garment worn by women
that covered the sacred statue of Athena. This ceremony was the
culminating act performed at the Panathenaea festival. It’s Athena’s
birthday gift, in other words, because the Panathenaea takes place
on her birthday.
❖❖ The Parthenon also features two pediments, the triangular spaces

on the short ends of the temple above the columns. The one on the
100 | Lecture 15 v The Culture of Athenian Democracy

Parthenon
west end depicts the contest for the land of Attica between Athena
and the sea god Poseidon. The pediment on the east end of the
temple depicts the birth of Athena out of the head of Zeus.
❖❖ Underneath the pediments are rectangular carved blocks known

as metopes, depicting a battle between Lapiths, a legendary Greek
people, and centaurs. The Lapiths are stand-ins for the Athenians,
whereas the centaurs—half-horse, half-man—are stand-ins for the
Persians, who were famous for their mounted archers.
❖❖ The east chamber of the Parthenon housed a colossal 40-foot-high

statue of Athena carved by Phidias, Pericles’s friend and the greatest
sculptor of his day. The sculpture was covered in gold and ivory.

REPATRIATION
❖❖ Note that most of the sculptures of the Parthenon aren’t on the

Parthenon today. Most were removed by Lord Elgin, a Scottish lord,
in 1801. He eventually sold them to the British Museum for a loss in
1816. Elgin bought them from the Ottoman Turks.
❖❖ The Greeks, unsurprisingly, say the Ottomans didn’t have the right
to sell the sculptures and claim that they should be returned to their
homeland—a practice known as repatriation.
❖❖ The Greek demand for repatriation has been made more urgent by
the building of the Acropolis Museum, which opened to the public in
2009. It has been designed to hold objects found on the Acropolis
dating from the Bronze Age through to the Byzantine period. Note
that it isn’t just the British Museum that is under pressure: The
Louvre and other national museums also have pieces of sculpture
from the Parthenon.
❖❖ The strongest argument against repatriation is that if the Elgin

sculptures were returned to Greece, this would open the floodgates
for the return of priceless artifacts from all over the world. Museums
across the world would be in trouble. Advocates for the return of the
Elgin sculptures claim that it wouldn’t set a precedent, so this is a
complicated issue.
PRIVATE SQUALOR
❖❖ One might expect that the standard of living in Athens would have
been comparably high as a result of the tribute from the empire
and proceeds from silver mines. Archaeology suggests this was far
from being the case, however. What little survives of the residential
quarters of Athens shows rudimentary housing, clear evidence that
most Athenians lived very frugal lives.
❖❖ Despite the grandeur of its public buildings, Athens was very much
like a country town rather than a bustling metropolis. It had virtually

no civic amenities. There was no street lighting, no police force, no
fire brigade, and no hospitals. The road system was rudimentary.
❖❖ Individual households were responsible for the disposal of their own

waste. Water was available at public fountains but not in private
houses.
LITERACY
❖❖ Even though there was no public education system, Athens was

probably the most literate city-state in the Greek world. The functioning
of Athenian democracy depended on a certain basic literacy—reading
more than writing—among a majority of the population.
❖❖ The agenda for the Assembly, notices about forthcoming military

campaigns, laws, and so on were promulgated. The place to catch
up with the latest doings of the democracy was in the city’s agora.

❖❖ There was also a lot of literature available to read. Poets from
Homer onward produced work, as did playwrights and philosophers.
Herodotus and Thucydides also produced works of history.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE
❖❖ The Athenian empire made the rich wealthier, but the great majority
of Athenian citizens remained poor. There was no real middle class.
State pay enabled the poor to live at leisure, but only frugally.
❖❖ Some scholars argue that state pay supported an idle mob, which
in turn sapped the moral fiber of the population. However, there isn’t
much evidence for this: Being an Athenian rower or peasant must
have been hard work.
LACK OF RESPECT
❖❖ Democracies are always more likely to have discipline problems

than authoritarian totalitarians or even oligarchies. For example,
juvenile delinquency was clearly a problem in Athens.
❖❖ Scholars have a record of a fascinating example of juvenile

delinquency. It’s preserved in a speech written by Demosthenes on
behalf of the injured party, dating to the middle of the 4th century BC.
❖❖ A man called Ariston was walking home at night when he was set
upon by a young man and his father. There was a history of bad
feeling between the two families. The father-and-son duo beat and
taunted Ariston. Scholars don’t know what the incidence of juvenile
delinquency was in Athens due to a lack of records, but it was likely
higher than it was in Sparta, which was a much more conservative
society.
❖❖ There’s also evidence to suggest that the Athenians were less

respectful of their elders than the Spartans. However, in Athens, as
in many Greek cities, there existed a law protecting parents. This
law placed sons under an obligation not to beat their parents and to
care for them in old age.

Suggested Reading
Anderson, The Athenian Experiment.
Herman, Morality and Behaviour in Democratic Athens.
1. How do democracy and culture interact?
2. How comfortable and at ease would you have felt living under Athenian
democracy?

16
Political Leadership
in Athens
T his lecture focuses on those Athenians

who got up and spoke and dominated the
Assembly. Though in theory every citizen was
entitled to voice his opinion, in reality, the ability
to do so in a gathering of some 5,000 to 6,000
people would have been limited to only a few. Of
particular focus in this lecture are two of the most
striking figures in the 5th century BC: Cleon and
Alcibiades. They were very different from each
other, and their careers raise important questions
about the relationship between a democracy and
its leaders.
THE LIFE OF A POLITICIAN
❖❖ Athenian politicians didn’t receive any direct pay. They occupied an

entirely unofficial position and status. They needed to be wealthy,
or at least of the leisured class, because that would have bought
visibility and support. Note: They could still receive gifts.
❖❖ Self-confidence was a critical quality for Athenian politicians. Public

speaking was a necessary skill as well. Though they didn’t receive
pay directly, politicians could gain glory and something close to
celebrity through their work in the Assembly.
❖❖ On the negative side, it was a dangerous business being a politician.

There was always a distinct possibility that a politician could be
fined, exiled, ostracized, or even—conceivably—condemned to
death by the Demos. In addition, there was the constant threat of
politically motivated lawsuits.
❖❖ The politician who did least to court celebrity status was probably
Pericles, although he seems to have had a natural flair for attracting
attention. From 448–429 BC, Pericles dominated Athens.
❖❖ Pericles was an aristocrat, and his ascendancy is a strong indication

of the profoundly conservative nature of Athenian society at this
time. Thirty years would pass after the implementation of radical
democracy before there emerged a leader who broke the aristocrats’
monopoly on power.
❖❖ After Pericles’s generation passed away, a new breed of Athenian

politicians emerged. These men were well off but did not come from
the aristocracy, with the except of Alcibiades.
CLEON
❖❖ Cleon, who came to prominence immediately after the death of

Pericles, was a tanner. His successor Cleophon was a lyre maker.
Both were wealthy, and neither of them was working class. Their
wealth was based on commerce rather than land, and that made all

the difference in the eyes of conservatives. There was an enormous
prejudice in both Greece and Rome in favor of wealth that was
derived from land ownership.
❖❖ Cleon in particular suffered from an extremely bad press. Thucydides,

for example, detested him on ideological grounds and because
of a personal grudge. Cleon had moved to exile Thucydides as a
scapegoat for a military blunder.
❖❖ Thucydides characterized Cleon’s boast that he could defeat the

Spartans in 20 days as “mad,” and yet that is exactly what Cleon
did. Of course, Thucydides gave him no credit for the victory, but the
Athenians later award him the highest honors in the state.
❖❖ The comic dramatist Aristophanes also mocked Cleon in his play

Babylonians. As a result, he was attacked and perhaps prosecuted,
by Cleon. Aristophanes portrayed Cleon as greedy, self-interested,
and manipulative—traits many politicians possess to some degree.
❖❖ All in all, it’s virtually impossible to judge Cleon objectively owing to

the extremely hostile testimony. He should, however, be given a lot
of credit for the victory at Sphacteria, as well as for having raised
pay for jurors. Cleon exercised more authority and enjoyed more
prestige than any of his contemporaries.
ALCIBIADES
❖❖ Alcibiades, who lived a generation later than Cleon, seemingly

sought visibility purely for the sake of visibility. His goal, in other
words, was celebrity. He was very charismatic and good looking.
❖❖ He earned fame and resentment by winning the four-horse chariot

race at Olympia. He wasn’t the charioteer. Rather, he was the owner,
and the owners took the prize. In fact, he won first, second, and third
place in a single event.
❖❖ Around 417 BC, just as Alcibiades was first becoming prominent

politically, a politician called Hyperbolus tried to have him ostracized.
108 | Lecture 16 v Political Leadership in Athens

However, Alcibiades and Nicias joined forces and succeeded in
having Hyperbolus ostracized instead. That was the last time the
Athenians resorted to ostracism.
❖❖ Later, Alcibiades entered a debate with Nicias about whether to invade

Sicily. Alcibiades, who strongly supported the invasion, interpreted
Nicias’s opposition as an attack on him and other young people of his
generation. This deflection allowed him to outmaneuver Nicias.
❖❖ Alcibiades did everything he could to attract attention, whether it

was favorable or unfavorable. For example, he decorated his shield
with the unwarlike Eros, the god of love. He also struck his future
father-in-law, and he dragged his wife by the hair from court one day
when she tried to sue him for divorce. He got away with all of this
because he was an aristocrat.
❖❖ Eventually, he was forced to flee abroad for his alleged role in

profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries. Thereafter, he teamed up with
the Spartans. It’s alleged he slept with one of the two Spartan
queens—the Spartans had a dual kingship—so that his descendants
would become kings of Sparta, as he facetiously put it.

❖❖ Later still, the Athenians forgave him and he was recalled. However,
even later, he was once again driven into exile again. He turned up
for the last time before the Battle of Aegospotami, the final naval
battle of the Peloponnesian War, when he tried to give advice to
the Athenians.
❖❖ Alcibiades’s career, with all its ups and down, reveals a great deal
about the mesmerizing power of the aristocracy in democratic
Athens in the final decades of the 5th century BC. Though leading
politicians didn’t exclusively come from the top social level after the
death of Pericles, Athens was unable to shake off its love affair with
wealth and the wealthy.
Suggested Reading
Davies, Wealth and the Power of Wealth in Classical Athens.
De Romilly, “Alcibiades.”
———, “Cleon.”
Garland, Celebrity in Antiquity.
1. Was Athens well served by its political leaders?
2. Apart from Pericles, which Athenian politician is most deserving of your

attention, and why?
110 | Lecture 16 v Political Leadership in Athens

17
The Brutality of
Athenian Democracy
T his lecture examines three case histories

that demonstrate the capacity of Athenian
democracy for brutality. The first involves the
cold-blooded massacre of a neutral people,
the second involves the trial and execution of
several Athenian generals for treason, and the
third involves the trial and condemnation of the
philosopher Socrates. They are all connected with
the Peloponnesian War.
MELOS
❖❖ In 416 BC, Alcibiades recommended that the Athenians conquer

the small island of Melos off the southeast coast of Peloponnese.
This was a Spartan colony that had remained neutral during the
war. It was tiny compared to Athens, having perhaps 3,000 citizens.
Athens attacked with a force of 3,000 fighters and 38 triremes.
❖❖ The Athenians were technically at peace with the Spartans at this

time, but they believed the entire Aegean region was their territory.
According to Thucydides, they sent ambassadors to Melos. The
two sides weighed the pros and cons of Melian resistance versus
submission. The exchange is known at the Melian Dialogue.
❖❖ Most, if not all, of the debate is probably an invention because

Thucydides was in exile and the Melians were massacred. It’s possible
Thucydides may have talked to a Melian woman who survived.
112 | Lecture 17 v The Brutality of Athenian Democracy

❖❖ The basis of the Athenian argument was that only self-interest
mattered in international affairs. They were strong, they would do
as they wished. The Melians, by contrast, appealed to justice and
human decency. This was met with scorn by the Athenians.
❖❖ The Athenians claimed it was no disgrace to submit to the greatest

city in Greece. The Melians said they were not going to give up
their freedom. Soon after, the Athenians began besieging the
Melians, who received no help from the Spartans. In the end, the
Melians surrendered.
❖❖ The entire male population was massacred and the Athenians

sold the woman and children into slavery. Afterward, the Athenians
sent 500 people to settle the island themselves. That form of brutal
retribution was called andrapodismos. It was regularly carried out
after a siege.
❖❖ The Athenian Demos voted for the attack, but surely, some of them
must have been horrified by it. One person who certainly was
horrified was the tragic poet Euripides. His play The Trojan Women
is clearly intended to be a denunciation of Athens’s willingness to
commit genocide, even though it’s set in the timeless past after the
fall of Troy.
EXECUTION OF GENERALS
❖❖ This lecture’s second incident involves a travesty of justice in 406

BC, a decade after the Melos massacre and two years from the end
of the Peloponnesian War. The Demos had just built a new fleet and
manned it with all able-bodied souls it could muster, including metics
and slaves.
❖❖ Off the Arginusae islands, close to the coast of modern-day Turkey,

they defeated the Peloponnesian navy. The Demos was ecstatic
when it learned the news and voted to give citizenship to the metics
and slaves who served as sailors. However, immediately afterward,
a storm struck. It prevented the generals from rescuing thousands
of their shipwrecked companions.

❖❖ The generals were also admirals. They were all expected to
command land forces and sea forces. Eight of the 10 Athenian
generals were directing the battle. When the Demos learned from
a later dispatch that thousands had drowned, it became apoplectic
with anger. A bitter debate took place in the Ecclesia, according to
the records of the mercenary officer and historian Xenophon. He
was a pro-Spartan oligarch.
❖❖ The debate seems to have gone fairly well for the generals. They
were able to blame the storm, which had made it impossible, they
claimed, for them to rescue the sailors. However, the next day was a
religious festival, and this had the effect of reminding the Athenians
how many men had been lost.
❖❖ When the Assembly met again, a much harsher line was adopted.
Six of the eight generals were found guilty of treason and executed.
The other two had fled rather than return to Athens for trial.
❖❖ In executing the six generals, the Demos acted rashly, vindictively

and unconstitutionally. It acted unconstitutionally because the
generals were tried en bloc, an illegal procedure. Some Athenians
likely regretted the decision because they later condemned to death
the instigators of the decision. However, the instigators fled before
their executions.
SOCRATES
❖❖ Socrates held a powerful post in the Assembly on the day of the

second meeting, when the Demos voted on whether or not to find
the generals guilty. He refused to put the motion to commit the
generals to trial to vote, but he was overruled. His own execution
six or seven years later is generally regarded as the worst crime of
Athenian democracy.
❖❖ The charges that Socrates faced were corrupting the youth and
not acknowledging the gods the state acknowledged. Because the
second charge came under the heading of impiety and was a crime
against the gods, the prosecution demanded the death penalty.
Socrates’s real offense was likely espousing unpopular views.

Socrates

❖❖ Alcibiades was a close associate, if not friend, of Socrates, and it
was certainly due to that association that Socrates was charged with
corrupting the young. Another prominent young aristocrat whom
Socrates supposedly corrupted was Plato’s relative Critias. As for
the religious charge, Socrates was accused of both disregarding
state gods and worshipping his own.
❖❖ Plato reports that Socrates could have fled if he so chose. However,

he chose to stay and face the charges, declaring himself bound
by the laws. He drank hemlock—the regular way of conducting an
execution—and took his own life.
ASSESSMENT
❖❖ Socrates’s trial and execution puzzles historians to this day. One

problem is that the two main sources are Xenophon and Plato, both
of whom were Socrates’s pupils and therefore possibly biased.
❖❖ Socrates tested the democracy by baiting it. It took the bait and
acted impetuously and recklessly. That was a flaw that lay at the
heart of the democracy: It acted without thinking through the full
consequences of its decision, in this case of its judgment. This was
very likely an example of crowd hysteria. To make amends, the
restored democracy later introduced measures to protect itself from
rash decisions in the future.
Suggested Reading
Bosworth, “The Humanitarian Aspect of the Melian Dialogue.”
Herman, Morality and Behaviour in Democratic Athens.
Mara, “Thucydides and Political Thought.”

1. Is there any evidence to suggest that states with democratic governments
adhere to a higher moral standard than those operating under other forms
of government?
2. Which, in your view, was the worst crime committed by the Athenian
democracy?

18
Athenian Defeat in Sicily
T his lecture discusses the biggest defeat in Athenian history,

one that happened at the hands of another democracy.
In many ways, this defeat was due to structural faults in the
Athenian democratic system. Democracy is not the most effective
way of running a war, and that was certainly the case in Athens.
There were three main structural weaknesses. First, the Athenian

military did not have the equivalent of a commander in chief.
Instead, it had 10 generals of equal rank, meaning majority
decisions sometimes left the minority rankled. The second
weakness was that a general could at any time be recalled,
relieved of his office, fined, or expelled by the Demos. This led to
extremely cautious choices by generals looking to protect their jobs.
The third weakness was that it was the right of the Demos to vote
on matters to do with war, while it was the duty of generals to carry
out its wish, whether or not they agreed with it. This could lead to
a general waging a war for which he had no appetite. All of these
weaknesses became fatal as in the final, tragic chapter of the
Peloponnesian War.
THE DECISION TO INVADE
❖❖ In 415 BC, Athens launched an expeditionary force to conquer the

island of Sicily. They decided to send 100 triremes—too small a
force—and three generals with equal power: Nicias and Alcibiades,
two heavy hitters, and a lightweight called Lamachus.
❖❖ However, before they’d set sail, two scandals erupted in Athens: the
mutilation of sacred stone objects called herms and the parodying
of the Eleusinian Mysteries (which were religious rites). Alcibiades’s
biographer claims that his political opponents induced witnesses to
claim falsely that he was involved in both crimes.
❖❖ Alcibiades was charged with impiety. He wanted to stand trial before

the expedition sailed and said he would do so on pain of death. The
Demos, acting under the influence of his enemies, decided that the
trial should be postponed and that he should be recalled later to face
the charges. This was one of the worst decisions the Demos ever
made—sending one of its generals off to Sicily under a cloud.
THE EXPEDITION
❖❖ The expedition sets sail from the Piraeus, the port of Athens, around
the middle of the summer of 415 BC. Athens supplied 100 ships and
her allies another 34. When the expeditionary force landed in Sicily,
each general produced a different plan of campaign.
❖❖ Nicias proposed that they should make a show of strength to

Syracuse and then quickly return home—a halfhearted, lackluster
strategy. Lamachus proposed an immediate assault on Syracuse.
This was the most aggressive and clearly the best plan.
❖❖ Alcibiades recommended that they win over as many Sicilian cities

as possible and then attack the enemies of Segesta, which were
Selinus and Syracuse. Alcibiades won out because Nicias had no
intention of adopting Lamachus’s plan. In other words, the second
best proposal was adopted.

ALCIBIADES AND SPARTA
❖❖ A few months at most after the expedition had arrived, an Athenian

ship arrived to take Alcibiades and others back to Athens to face
charges of impiety. His enemies had taken advantage of his absence
to prepare for a conviction. He managed to escape, fled to Sparta,
and was condemned in absentia. He then began colluding with
the Spartans.
❖❖ He recommended that the Spartans establish a base inside Attica

at a place called Decelea, which could serve as a refuge for
runaway slaves. Some 20,000 Athenian slaves fled there, we’re
told. He also recommended that the Spartans should send a military
advisor, Gylippus, to Syracuse. These two recommendations had
a tremendous impact on both the Peloponnesian War and the
Sicilian expedition.
❖❖ There were now two remaining generals, Nicias and Lamachus. Both
were committed to a strategy—the one proposed by Alcibiades—
that they did not endorse. Nicias assumed sole command because
120 | Lecture 18 v Athenian Defeat in Sicily

he was more experienced than Lamachus, and the situation very
quickly went downhill.
❖❖ Eventually, after trying without much success to drum up support

from other Sicilian cities, the Athenians began blockading Syracuse.
Lamachus was killed. Gylippus broke the blockade of Syracuse,
whereupon Nicias wrote a letter to Assembly urging the Demos
either to sanction his withdrawal or to send more troops.
ARGUMENTS OVER STRATEGY
❖❖ Nicias likely would have preferred the Demosthenes

Demos to sanction his withdrawal.
Instead, it sent another fleet under a
general called Demosthenes. At first, after
the arrival of reinforcements, things went
well, but then a direct assault on Syracuse
failed. Consequently, Demosthenes urged
withdrawal but Nicias resisted. He resisted
because he was afraid of being prosecuted
for incompetence by the Athenian Demos.
❖❖ Before long, his army became weakened

by sickness. In the end, Nicias had
no option but to concede that the only
course of action was to withdraw. Then,
on August 27, 413, an eclipse of moon
took place. Some read this as a sign the
withdrawal should be delayed. Nicias, on
advice from his soothsayers, delayed the
withdrawal for 21 days.
❖❖ Predictably, it was a disastrous decision. In

that time, the Syracusans were able to contain the Athenian fleet in the
Great Harbor so that it couldn’t sail off. Eventually, the Athenians tried
to escape over land in hope of reaching a place hostile to Syracuse.
Nicias was at the head, Demosthenes at the rear.

FINAL DEFEAT
❖❖ Demosthenes was caught first and surrendered. Two days later,

the Syracusans caught up with Nicias. The Athenians were so
exhausted by this point that they scarcely put up any resistance.
Against the wishes of Gylippus, Nicias and Demosthenes were both
executed.
❖❖ One historical account says 40,000 Athenians had tried to escape by

land and that 7,000 were taken prisoner. The rest were butchered.
This doesn’t include those who perished at sea. In 414, immediately
after the expedition’s failure, Sparta resumed hostilities. Persia now
began to assist Sparta by contributing with money.
❖❖ Athens, meanwhile, was prevented from minting silver coins

because the Spartans were occupying a fort inside Attica called
Decelea, from which they could raid the countryside. The occupation
of Decelea meant that the Athenians were denied the use of their
silver mines at Lavrium. At the same time, a number of Athens’s
allies revolted. The Sicilian expedition had been a disaster.
122 | Lecture 18 v Athenian Defeat in Sicily

Suggested Reading
Connor, Thucydides (book 6).
Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition.
1. To what extent was Athens’s failure in Sicily due to Athens’s democratic
constitution?
2. To what extent was it due to poor generalship?

19
Suspension, Restoration,
and Termination
T he previous lecture saw the Athenians in

dire straits. They had suffered the greatest
defeat in their history. They had no money and no
fleet, and were facing a widespread revolt among
their allies. As a result of their fear, the Athenians
put their noses to the grindstone, as Thucydides
grudgingly noted and this lecture shows.
DRASTIC MEASURES
❖❖ In 413 BC, following the failure of the Sicilian expedition, the Demos
appointed a board of 10 probouloi, one from each tribe. Their
minimum age was probably 40, and one of them was the tragedian
Sophocles. It was their job to offer advice as the situation required.
Another measure was the suspension of the Council of 500.
❖❖ There was a widening gap between oligarchs and democrats. There

had always been an undercurrent of discontent, a closet faction of
oligarchical-minded Athenians who met in dark corners and spoke in
whispers of the days before Athens had become a radical democracy.
❖❖ Now, they were emboldened to speak openly of their disenchantment

with democracy. They did so as a result of the failure of the Sicilian
expedition, for which they held the Demos responsible.
THE 400 AND THE 5,000
❖❖ The probouloi remained in charge for about two years, exercising a

steadying hand on Athenian politics. Then, in 411, a meeting of the
Assembly took place outside city walls, which only those who could
afford hoplite armor were permitted to attend. Radical democracy
was suspended and an oligarchic government was set up. It was
known as the 400, not to be confused with the Council of 500, or
Boule, which prepared the agenda for the Assembly.
❖❖ The coup succeeded because Athens was broke, and the oligarchs
argued that Athens needed the help of Persia to continue the war.
The only way they could get Persia to help was if they changed
their constitution, as Persia was hostile to democracy, being itself
an autocracy.
❖❖ The other reason why the coup succeeded is that Athens’s fleet
was stationed off the island of Samos, just off the coast of modern-
day Turkey, at the time. It could do nothing to prevent the takeover,
which it doubtless would have done if it had been stationed in the
Piraeus. The rowers in the fleet were the staunchest advocates of

democracy because they were the poorest, and they were the ones
who benefited most from state pay.
❖❖ In fact, the 400 remained in power for only four months because
the rowers remained loyal to democracy. In the end, the only thing
the 400 did in an effort to convert Athens into an oligarchy was to
suspend pay both for jurors and for political services. They didn’t go
so far as to suspend pay for service in the military.
❖❖ In September of 411, the 400 were ejected. For the next eight
months, until June of 410, Athens was ruled by moderate oligarchs—
the so-called 5,000. There were around 9,000 Athenian hoplites at
this date, so the 5,000 constituted just over half of the hoplite class.
The 5,000 combined democracy with oligarchy. After eight months,
the 5,000 voluntarily abrogated their powers, pending a return to full
democracy.
PROBLEMS REMAIN
❖❖ In June of 410, full democracy was restored. Over the next five
years, Athens won a number of victories, largely due to Alcibiades,
who had been recalled and reinstated as general. Then, in 405,
Athens suffered a catastrophic and final defeat at a place called
Aegospotami, just off the coast of northwestern Turkey. Only about
20 ships survived from a fleet of 180.
126 | Lecture 19 v Suspension, Restoration, and Termination

❖❖ The general, Conon, fled to Cyprus rather than face prosecution
back in Athens. All of the allies, with the single exception of the island
of Samos, revolted. The hardline democrats, however, refused to
bow. A politician called Cleophon passed a resolution to the effect
that any Athenian who suggested making peace should be exiled.
❖❖ Athens, without a fleet, was blockaded, and its population was starving.
Eventually, another politician called Theramenes negotiated terms
of surrender with Sparta, and Cleophon was executed. The Demos
surrendered in 404. The island of Samos fought on a bit longer.
❖❖ Incidentally, no formal peace agreement between Sparta and

Athens was ever concluded. In fact, it wasn’t until March of 1996, or
2,400 years after Athens surrendered, that Athens and Sparta finally
signed a declaration pledging ties between the two cities.
❖❖ In the aftermath of the war, Athens was permitted to retain only

12 triremes. The city walls were torn down, but the Athenians
themselves were spared. The Spartans spared Athens because
they calculated that the city would provide a check to Sparta’s allies
should they prove troublesome, which they soon did.
THE THIRTY TYRANTS
❖❖ In summer of 404, a Spartan-backed oligarchy dubbed by ancient

historians as the Thirty Tyrants took over. It did so with the support
and connivance of Lysander, a Spartan admiral, who kept a garrison
at hand manned by former Spartan slaves.
❖❖ Sparta had a mixed constitution. It had two kings, a council of 30

men over the age of 60 known as the gerousia, and an assembly
known as the apella. Political theorists looked upon it approvingly as
a mixture of monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy.
❖❖ Sparta always did what it could to reduce the spread of democracy. It

distrusted democracy because it distrusted change and innovation,
which it equated with political turmoil. The Peloponnesian League,
which it headed, was composed of oligarchies, with just two
exceptions in Elis and Mantinea.

❖❖ The slogan of the Thirty Tyrants was the restoration of Athens’s
“ancestral constitution.” It was a bogus claim. Their rule was
proposed in the Assembly by a man named Dracontides, and
30 men were appointed to direct affairs of state and draft a new
constitution on “ancient” lines.
❖❖ They did not draft a new constitution. They repealed laws passed
by Ephialtes, disbanded the popular courts, and began revising the
legal code. The right to attend the Assembly was limited to 3,000.
The 30 men in power used 300 whip bearers to enforce their will.
Athens had become a police state.
❖❖ The writer I. F. Stone described Critias, the leader of the tyrants,

as a cruel and brutal man who was “determined to remake the city
according to his own anti-democratic mold whatever the human
cost.” This reign of terror lasted for eight months.
❖❖ Theramenes, who had been active in establishing the 400, was one
of the Thirty Tyrants. He was a moderate, however, by comparison
with the other 29. Critias forced him to drink hemlock for not being
sufficiently extreme. Under the rule of the Thirty Tyrants, 1,500
citizens were killed, plus 1,000 metics. In addition, 5,000 people
were exiled, and private property was seized.
❖❖ Before long, however, resistance grew. Civil war broke out, with
exiled democrats establishing themselves in the Piraeus, Athens’s
port. A battle took place there, which saw the democrats defeat the
forces of the Thirty Tyrants. Critias fell in the battle.
❖❖ Sympathizers of the Thirty Tyrants ultimately set up a separate polity

in Eleusis, the town that was home to the Eleusinian Mysteries,
some 13 miles west of Athens. The democrats invited oligarchs to
conference, and then they killed them.
DEMOCRACY RETURNS
❖❖ In 403 BC, a restoration of full democracy was brought about.

Amnesty for all, except for the Thirty Tyrants and their henchman,
was implemented. Athens was reunited.

❖❖ The general consensus among scholars is that Athenian democracy
reached its final phase of evolution in the 4th century BC.
Six important changes characterized

Athens in this time:
1. Oligarchs were now no longer a force in Athenian
politics because democracy has no challengers.
2. Laws could not be passed by a simple vote of the

Assembly, but instead had to be vetted by a board of
6,000 annually appointed jurors. The democracy had
become more cautious.
3. The role of the Areopagus gradually increased. It was

given the task of ensuring that magistrates complied
with law. It was also tasked with supervising sanctuaries.
4. The Demos increased the number of handouts. For

example, the theoric fund provided free seats at
public spectacles, including the theatre. They may
have been acknowledging the importance of having a
representative cross-section—the rich and the poor—
in attendance.
5. The administrative load of democracy reduced

because Athens had no empire to run. Athens did
eventually come to head a second alliance, but this
never converted into an empire.
6. Mercenaries now came to play a more important role

in naval and infantry warfare, weakening the important
tie between citizenship and military service that had
been such a distinctive feature of earlier democracy.

❖❖ Athenian democracy proved to be less than wholly efficient in waging
the Peloponnesian War. It proved equally, if not more, incompetent
in facing the challenge posed by Philip II of Macedon.
❖❖ The last 30 years of the democracy were largely consumed with

debates over the rising power of Macedon under Philip II, who came
to the throne in 359. In 20 years, he transformed Macedon into the
greatest military power in the Greek world.
❖❖ This was the period when the great orator Demosthenes and his
rival Aeschines clashed over what policy to adopt. Demosthenes
advocated a vigorous anti-Macedon policy, and Aeschines urged
compliance. Eventually, Demosthenes won the hearts and minds
of the Athenian people, and Athens led a coalition of Greek states
versus Philip II. It was defeated in 338 at Chaeronea.
FALLING ACTIONS
❖❖ Eighteen months later, on the motion of Eucrates, the Athenians

passed a law declaring firm opposition against tyranny. The
opposition between democracy and tyranny is ideologically central
to the very definition of democracy.
❖❖ From 336 to 322/1 BC, Athens was largely under the control of one
man, rather as it had been nearly a century earlier when Pericles
had been at the helm. That man was a blue-blooded aristocrat
called Lycurgus.
❖❖ Lycurgus held the position of chief financial officer. It was an elected

position, but Lycurgus wielded more power in this role than anyone
had before him. Lycurgus’s greatest achievement was to ensure
that Athens was adequately supplied with imported grain.
❖❖ When Philip II’s son Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323, the
Athenians thought that Macedon was finished. Following the lead
of Demosthenes, the Athenians staged a revolt versus Macedonian
rule both by sea and by land. They again had a huge fleet.

❖❖ About 20 Greek states joined them in what was called the Lamian
War (323–322 BC), but Macedon, under its regent Antipater,
was victorious. After the death of Alexander the Great, Antipater
took charge of the whole empire in the name of Alexander’s son
Alexander IV.
❖❖ After the revolt had been crushed, Demosthenes, guessing that

the Macedonians would send a hit man after him, took his own life
by swallowing poison. Antipater didn’t, however, abolish Athens's
democracy as such. He was much subtler than that. He introduced
a minimum property qualification of 2,000 drachmas for an Athenian
to be eligible for citizenship.
❖❖ That was the equivalent of having three years’ income in the bank.
It meant that at least one-third of the citizen body was removed from
the roster. In addition, the Athenians had to accept a Macedonian
garrison. In effect, Athens was now a managed oligarchy. The
year 322 BC was the end of the road for Athenian independence
and democracy.
Suggested Reading
Hansen, The Athenian Assembly in the Age of Demosthenes.
Herman, Stability and Crisis in the Athenian Democracy.
Krentz, The Thirty at Athens.
Shear, Polis and Revolution: Responding to Oligarchy in Classical Athens.
1. Would Athens have been better governed by an oligarchy?
2. Was the Athenian democracy justified in executing Socrates?

20
The Democratic Theater
T his lecture focuses on events at the Theater

of Dionysus, which was located on the
southern side of the Acropolis. (The present-day
version is from Roman times.) The original theater
featured wooden seating and space where the
chorus sang and danced, made of beaten earth.
From 500 BC onward, tragedies, comedies, and
satyr plays were performed here.
Theater of Dionysus
THE INSTITUTION OF THE THEATER
❖❖ The theater was a civic institution because the state supervised it,
controlled it, and organized the financing of it. Athens’ allies were
permitted to attend the principal drama festival, the City Dionysia.
There was another drama festival, the Lenaea, from which they were
excluded. From the middle of the 5th century BC, the City Dionysia
staged a public presentation of the tribute collected from the allies.
❖❖ The Athenians recognized three genres of drama and kept them

strictly separate. The two main genres were tragedy and comedy.
The third was the satyr play, a kind of farce that followed a trilogy of
tragic plays. It takes its name from the fact that it dealt with the antics
of satyrs. Satyrs were half-human and half-animal creatures whose
drunken antics provided a lighthearted antidote to the seriousness
of tragedy.

❖❖ Playwrights who wanted to have their plays performed first had to
submit their work to the archon basileus and the eponymous archon
for consideration. If successful, a wealthy citizen would be appointed
to finance the production. This was one of the liturgies, or services
to the state, financed by wealthy Athenians.
❖❖ One estimate puts the number of Athenians who were involved in

the staging of plays at the City Dionysia at around 1,500. Some of
those involved, perhaps a considerable number, are likely to have
been women, who would probably have made the costumes and
perhaps the masks.
❖❖ Drama formed part of two festivals: the City Dionysia, held in March
and April, and the Lenaea, held in January and February. That meant
Athenians could only indulge their taste for drama twice a year.
134 | Lecture 20 v The Democratic Theater

PERSONNEL
❖❖ All actors were male. The chief actor was called the protagonist, the
second was called the deuteragonist, and the third was called the
tritagonist. Each actor in a tragedy had to play as many as three
parts because three actors was the limit. To accomplish this, actors
wore masks.
❖❖ Choruses accompanied the actors. There were 17 choruses for the

tragic, satyric, and comic plays at both the City Dionysia and the
Lenaea, adding up to 34 in all. In the case of comedy, the chorus
could be either human, as in the production Knights; or animal, as in
Wasps; or a natural phenomenon, as in Clouds.
❖❖ The chorus danced to an aulos, which was an instrument that

produced a sound rather like an oboe. It was their role to provide
commentary on the action and occasional advice, without knowing
how things would turn out.
❖❖ The Theater of Dionysus accommodated, at a conservative estimate,

between 14,000 and 17,000 people. Tragedians were required to
write three tragedies and one satyr play. Comic dramatists only
wrote one play each. All in all, the productions added up to four solid
days of theater, each beginning at dawn.
PERSIANS
❖❖ The lecture now turns to three tragedies, which in different ways

reveal something about Athenian democracy. The first is Persians
by Aeschylus. Its subject is the Persian defeat at Salamis in 480 BC.
At first sight, it looks as if the playwright is celebrating the virtues of
democracy over autocracy.
❖❖ A Persian messenger gives a description of the Greek naval victory

to a Persian court. The early lines are stirring, but eventually, the
messenger describes in detail how the Athenians hacked at sailors
struggling in the water. It’s a reminder of what civilized people,
including democratic people, are capable of doing in war.

ORESTEIA
❖❖ Another dramatic offering was

Oresteia, also by Aeschylus
and the only surviving Greek
trilogy. Oresteia takes its name
from the Greek hero Orestes.
In the first play of the trilogy
Agamemnon, the commander of
the Greek army, is murdered on
his return from Troy by his wife,
Clytemnestra, and her lover,
Aegisthus.
❖❖ In the second part of the trilogy,

Orestes avenges his father’s
death by murdering his mother Aeschylus
and her lover, after which he is
plagued by the Furies, demonic
spirits that pursue him relentlessly. In the final part of the trilogy,
Orestes goes to Delphi to seek purification for his crime.
❖❖ Purification, however, is not enough. He needs to stand trial and be

judged as well. He heads for Athens, where on the Areopagus, the
goddess Athena establishes the first court in the land. The Furies
are the prosecutors and Apollo speaks for the defense.
❖❖ Orestes was only doing what was right, Apollo claims. When it
comes to voting, the jury of Athenians in the play is divided right
down the middle. Athena steps in and casts her vote on behalf of the
accused, who is declared innocent.
❖❖ After presenting how trial by jury first arose in Athens, Aeschylus

now shifts the audience’s attention to the consequences of a not-
guilty verdict. The injured party, the Furies, are apoplectic with rage.
They threaten to wreak revenge on Athens for dishonoring them.
❖❖ Once again, Athena steps in to resolve the crisis. She offers a

compromise. She says that they will have a home in Athens and be

venerated because they are necessary in the just city. They will act
as guardians of justice, rather than as instruments of vengeance.
Henceforth, murder will be determined by due process, not by a
revenge killing. The Furies accept the offer and are transformed into
the Eumenides, which means the “Kindly Ones.”
ANTIGONE
❖❖ This lecture’s third tragedy is Antigone by Sophocles. It’s likely that

it was written when Pericles was at the helm because the figure of
Creon, the king of Thebes, seems to be based on Pericles. Creon is
depicted as an inflexible leader who pushes through an unpopular
measure in defiance of public sentiment.
❖❖ Creon refuses burial to his nephew, Polyneices, because Polyneices

led an ill-fated attempt to wrest the throne of Thebes from his
brother, Eteocles. Polyneices’s sister, Antigone, considers Creon’s
action an outrage. She sprinkles
earth over her brother’s corpse,
pours a libation, and then gets Sophocles
arrested.
❖❖ Creon condemns her to death.

Before this happens, however,
a debate takes place between
Creon and his son, Haemon,
who is betrothed to Antigone.
Creon argues that the situation
calls for firmness and that
nothing is worse than when
anarchy is let loose on the land.
Haemon tells his father that the
citizens are displeased with his
decision and that it’s important
to be flexible.
❖❖ Haemon accuses his father of

disrespecting the gods, which
makes Creon so incensed that

he threatens to execute Antigone in his son’s presence. Haemon
storms off, declaring his father will never set eyes on him again.
❖❖ This kind of set-piece argument was very popular in Greek tragedy.

It evoked the world of the Assembly and the lawcourts. In this
instance, reason gives way to passion.
ARISTOPHANES’S COMEDIES
❖❖ The lecture now turns to the comedies of the poet Aristophanes,

focusing particularly on Old Comedy. It was set in the present day
and dealt with contemporary issues. It also contained a great deal
of ribald and scatological humor. A regular feature of Old Comedy
is the ordinary citizen who somehow manages to change the
political situation.
❖❖ Only 11 comic plays by Aristophanes have survived. He wrote from

the mid-420s to the 380s BC. Three of the plays—The Acharnians,
Women at the Ecclesia, and Women at the Thesmophoria—parody
meetings of the Assembly.
❖❖ It isn’t only the Assembly that is represented in various ways. Wasps

depicts the trial of a dog that has been accused of theft. It’s called
Wasps because the chorus comprises waspish jurors.
❖❖ One element in the plot structure of Old Comedy, called the

parabasis, was used by the poet as an opportunity to harangue
the audience without any reference to the play. The chorus leader
speaks in the poet’s voice by stepping out of his role. In the play
Frogs, for instance, the poet urges reconciliation between democrats
and oligarchs. It was produced in 405, when Athens was in political
crisis just before the end of the Peloponnesian War.
THE JUDGES
❖❖ The Athenian theater was an outlet for competitiveness between the

playwrights and their sponsors, the chorêgoi. The three playwrights
(and their sponsors) who produced tragedies and satyr plays, and

the three playwrights (and their sponsors) who produced comedies
all competed for first, second, and third prize.
❖❖ Ten judges were chosen by lot, one from each of the 10 tribes, and
it was they who cast their votes. No one knows what criteria they
actually judged the plays on.
❖❖ Another strange feature is that only some tallies were selected.

Perhaps as many as half may have been discarded. This was
presumably to avoid bribery, though one could perhaps argue that it
was also leaving part of the judgment to the god Dionysus, in whose
honor the festival was celebrated.
Suggested Reading
Aristophanes, Acharnians, Knights, and Peace.
Cartledge, Aristophanes and His Theatre of the Absurd.
Sidwell, Aristophanes the Democrat.
1. Does theater have a duty to educate the citizen body?
2. How important is it for theater today to address political and social issues?

21
Law and Order
under Democracy
A thenian democracy was based on two

essential principles: the right of every citizen
to participate fully in the decision-making process
and the right to be judged by a jury of his peers.
This lecture looks at the way in which the popular
courts functioned. Note: Scholars know much more
about due process and how a trial took place than
they do about crimes and criminals themselves.
Most evidence comes from forensic speeches
written on behalf of well-to-do clients.
KEEPING ORDER
❖❖ The Athenians didn’t have a police force or

detectives. No Greek state did, and neither
did the Romans. In Athens, the Scythian
archers were primarily in the business
of keeping order, but they didn’t have the
power to arrest anyone. This must have
been extremely difficult for victims of violent
crime, especially if they happened to be frail
or elderly.
❖❖ If the injured party was physically incapable

of apprehending the guilty party and did not have any friends
or relatives to stand in for him or her, she or he had the right to
summon a magistrate, who would then make an arrest on their
behalf. In practice, however, this was probably fairly unusual. It must
have been difficult to convince a magistrate of a party’s guilt without
witnesses. In the case of a wrongful arrest, the wrongful party was
liable for a fine of 1,000 drachmas.
❖❖ Greek society depended on a level of community engagement in

upholding the law and apprehending criminals. So far as scholars
can tell, it worked.
THE COURTS
❖❖ In the Athenian legal system, ordinary citizens were both juror and
judge. For simplicity, this lecture will refer to them as jurors. After the
reforms spearheaded by Ephialtes and Pericles in 462/1 BC that
stripped the Areopagus of many of its powers, most cases were
heard by the dikastêria (the jury courts).
❖❖ The Athenian legal system featured limited distinction between

criminal and civil law. There were no lawyers, though some
prosecutors profited from successful prosecutions by earning
rewards. If a prosecutor failed to secure one-fifth of the votes, he
was fined.

❖❖ Only basic cross-examination was allowed at first, and then it
was banned from the 370s BC onward. Instead, depositions from
witnesses were read in court. No physical evidence, such as
murder weapons, was presented, and the accused could be tried
in absentia.
❖❖ Courts were located in Agora. Juries were very large—sometimes

as many as 500 or 501 people, and always in the hundreds. The
idea was that large juries would be more difficult to bribe.
❖❖ Each year, 6,000 dikasts (jurors) were chosen by lot from all who
applied. This panel was called the hêliaia. The minimum age to
become a juror was 30. Pay of two obols was introduced in the 450s
BC, and raised to three obols by Cleon in the 420s BC.
ARRAIGNMENT
❖❖ A person accused of a crime would receive a written summons

naming the day they, along with the plaintiff, had to appear before
one of the nine archons. Both parties had to swear a solemn
oath—the plaintiff that their charge was genuine, and the defendant
pleading innocence or admitting guilt.
❖❖ If the archon decided that the charge should come to trial, he

assigned the case to a particular court on a particular date. Other
than in the case of theft, murder, rape, and adultery, the accused
would be able to walk freely and go about their business until the
day of the trial.
❖❖ People who turned up to serve as jurors on any given day were not
guaranteed a place on the bench. There was a special allotment
machine that determined at random who should serve on any
particular jury. Each juror had a bronze token, and the machine
determined whether he was selected or not. This meant it was
impossible to bribe jurors beforehand.
❖❖ A magistrate, one of the archons, was the court president. Each of the
nine archons presided over cases of a specific sort. The king archon,
for instance, presided over religious cases involving impiety. The
142 | Lecture 21 v Law and Order under Democracy

president didn’t give advice to the jury, so he couldn’t influence the
verdict. He just kept order and supervised the technical side of the trial.
PROCEDURES
❖❖ Each trial took a single day at

most, i.e., 9 or 10 hours. Many
would have been much shorter.
The plaintiff always spoke first,
followed by the defendant. Klepsudra
Parties could hire speechwriters,
but they had to deliver the
speeches themselves. The
plaintiff and defendant each
received the exact same amount
of time to speak, measured by a
device known as a klepsudra,
which functioned by draining
water from one cup to another
over a set amount of time.
❖❖ After the plaintiff and defendant

had both delivered their
speeches, the jury didn’t retire to
deliberate and appoint a foreman.
They voted instantaneously by
secret ballot. Then, the votes
were counted in the presence
of the prosecutor and the defendant. A simple majority decided the
verdict. If the vote turned out to be even, the accused was acquitted.
❖❖ If a guilty verdict was returned, the plaintiff and defendant each took
turns to recommend a punishment, with the plaintiff again speaking
first. Obviously, the plaintiff would recommend a more severe
punishment than the now-convicted person. The convicted would
typically try to recommend a more lenient punishment, but not so
lenient that the jury would choose the more severe punishment.

❖❖ Sentencing took place immediately, again without any deliberation.
Most penalties were pecuniary. Long-term imprisonment wasn’t an
option: The Greeks didn’t have the manpower to support a prison
system, nor did they want to support criminals at public cost. The
usual punishments were fines or, in extreme cases, banishment.
❖❖ Execution, as in Socrates’s case, was extremely rare. There was a

prison in the agora. Socrates was held there, but only while he was
awaiting execution.
❖❖ Some important changes took place in legal procedure in the 4th

century BC under the restored democracy. The most important
was that arbitration became increasingly common for settlement of
private disputes. Arbitrators were chosen by lot from men aged 59,
i.e., men in the last year that they were eligible for military service.
No doubt this was considered a great honor, reserved for Athenians
who had demonstrated integrity and good judgement throughout
their lives.
PROS AND CONS
❖❖ This lecture ends with an assessment of the Athenian court system,

balancing the pros against the cons. First up are the cons. Some
sources, like Aristophanes, suggest the courts demonstrated a bias
against the wealthy, viewing the jury system as a way to get back at
the wealthy through fines. Whether that was true or not is unknown.
❖❖ The system surely favored practiced orators. For example, a peasant

farmer with no public speaking experience would have been at a
disadvantage when facing a jury of 200 or more.
❖❖ Another flaw was that women did not have the same access to the
courts that men did. A woman had to be represented in court by a
man, even though the speech was delivered in the first person if
it was a written speech. Also note that rhetoric, rather than hard
evidence, played a disproportionate part in the proceedings.
144 | Lecture 21 v Law and Order under Democracy

❖❖ Politically motivated cases were another unfortunate feature. Finally,
because the system required an instant verdict, there was no time
for mature reflection on matters.
❖❖ Despite the flaws, the Athenian system had some redeeming

features. It was straightforward, transparent, and simple. It was swift,
with every judgment being delivered the same day. Jury tampering
was virtually impossible, and the vote was secret. It’s likely that
most penalties were proportionate, and there were provisions for
deterring worthless lawsuits.
Suggested Reading
Hansen, The Sovereignty of the People’s Court in Athens.
Lanni, Law and Justice in the Courts of Classical Athens.
Saxonhouse, Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens.
Stone, The Trial of Socrates.
Wilson, The Death of Socrates: Hero, Villain, Chatterbox, Saint.
1. How might the Athenians have improved their legal system?
2. Are there any ways in which it is superior to our legal system?

22
Ancient Critics of
Athenian Democracy
T his lecture takes a look at critics of Athenian

democracy during its time. The government
produced a fairly stable society for a long period of
time, and most Athenians—at least the citizens—
were likely happy with it. However, the majority of
Athenians didn’t write things down for posterity.
This presents an anomaly: Scholars know of
almost no one living at the time of Athenian
democracy that had anything good to say about it.
HERODOTUS
❖❖ The historian Herodotus included a famous debate in his work,

known as History. The record of the debate depicts three Persians
arguing about the best type of constitution in the year 522 BC.
These three, along with four other conspirators, had just killed a
pretender to the Persian throne, and they wanted to install the best
form of government.
❖❖ Monarchy had been the rule in Persia up until then, but apparently
they were open to other options. (Note: Though someone may have
told Herodotus about the debate, this debate is fabricated.) Each
of the three speakers touted the values of a different system of
government—first democracy, then oligarchy, and then monarchy.
❖❖ The first to speak was Otanes, and he railed against monarchy while
favoring democracy. After Otanes had spoken, a Persian called
Megabyzus argued in favor of oligarchy. Finally, Darius lauded the
virtues of monarchy. At the end of Darius’s speech, Otanes said
he recognized the way the debate had gone, did not wish to be
ruled, and would depart. The remaining people agreed to install a
monarchy, and Darius became king.
❖❖ Herodotus didn’t pass any judgment on the debate. Elsewhere in

his History, however, he passed a mixed verdict on democracy.
In one place, he recounted that Athenians under the control of a
tyrant were deliberately inefficient, but acted energetically once they
achieved liberty. On another occasion, he wrote that it was much
easier to persuade 30,000 Athenian citizens to go to war than to
persuade a single citizen in oligarchical Sparta.
TRAGEDY
❖❖ Praise of democracy occasionally occurred in tragedy. One of most

celebrated is a comment by the chorus of Persian elders in The
Persians, written by Aeschylus. When the Persian queen Atossa asks
who is the shepherd of the Athenian people, the chorus responds,
“They are slaves of no man and do not listen to one person.”

❖❖ It’s worth keeping the context in mind. The play is about Athens’s
naval victory over the Persians at Salamis, so there’s likely to be the
occasional piece of nationalist sentiment popping up.
PLATO’S PROTAGORAS
❖❖ Arguably the most sustained defense of Athenian democracy from

antiquity is a speech given by the sophist Protagoras in Plato’s
dialogue of that name. Protagoras claims that Zeus distributed a
sense of justice and a sense of shame to all men equally. Hence, the
Athenians are right to listen to anyone in the Assembly because a
sense of justice and of shame are necessary skills for living in a city.
❖❖ Socrates and his pupil Plato hated sophists, which raises suspicions
about this remark. Sure enough, Socrates weighs in and challenges
Protagoras’s assumption. He ultimately gets Protagorus to admit
that these qualities do not belong to every man and must be taught.
Therefore, democracy is a bad thing.
❖❖ In real life, Protagoras drafted a democratic constitution for the

Athenian colony of Thurii in Italy. It’s not altogether unlikely that
he might have delivered the kind of speech that Plato put into his
mouth. If he did, it hasn’t survived, and all scholars are left to go with
is Socrates’s dismissive rebuttal.
THUCYDIDES
❖❖ It’s very difficult not to view both the Peloponnesian War and
Athenian democracy through the eyes of Thucydides. He was a
major witness from the outbreak of the war in 431 to 411 BC, when
his History of the Peloponnesian War breaks off.
❖❖ Pericles, who is sometimes seen as his mouthpiece, was highly

contemptuous of the masses. When the Demos berates Pericles
for the woes they’re suffering because of his policy of abandoning
Attica and retreating inside the city walls, Pericles scorns them and
refuses to woo them.
148 | Lecture 22 v Ancient Critics of Athenian Democracy

❖❖ One of most striking condemnations of democracy in Thucydides’s
work is put into the mouth of the traitor Alcibiades. He describes
democracy as “a generally acknowledged folly.” Note that
Thucydides was writing for an elite audience, and it’s not clear how
many Athenians would have shared his opinion.
THE OLD OLIGARCH
❖❖ Another source of criticism is a short pamphlet written by an

anonymous opponent of democracy, generally entitled the Old
Oligarch. The author is referred to as Pseudo-Xenophon because
the pamphlet was found in writings by Xenophon, though it’s not
thought to be by him.
❖❖ The author mounts an artificial defense of democracy in a way that

exposes its greed and selfishness. He points out that the poor—
i.e., rowers—have more power than the rich, because Athens’s
power depends on the rowers. His point is that the supporters of
democracy have devised a very clever system that works very well
for themselves.
❖❖ Note that he never suggests the overthrow of democracy in favor of

oligarchy. He’s content to fulminate from the sidelines as a passive
bystander. It’s possible the pamphlet was intended to
serve as a rhetorical exercise of the sort that
the sophists might set as homework for
their students, i.e., asking them to write
a justification of Athenian democracy
from an oligarchic standpoint.
ARISTOPHANES
❖❖ The comic dramatist Aristophanes

produced works inspired by
contemporary events and living
people. He had an ongoing
feud with the politician Cleon,
Aristophanes

who impeached Aristophanes for his anti-patriotic portrayal of
Athenians in Babylonians.
❖❖ In turn Aristophanes mocked Cleon in Knights, where he depicts him

as a Paphlagonian slave. As the villain of the piece, he bamboozles
an elderly man who is the unflattering personification of the Demos.
In other works, Aristophanes seemed to question the point of the
Peloponnesian War, and he was also critical of the jury system.
❖❖ Note that Aristophanes was primarily in the business of making his

audience laugh. Scholars should be wary of drawing any conclusion
about his political affiliation from his plays. In some regards, his
work is similar to that of modern-day late-night TV hosts, who use
humor to make serious criticisms of politicians.
PLATO
❖❖ The philosopher Plato had a jaundiced view of democracy because

of the execution of Socrates. It’s also clear that he had no confidence
in the common man. He uses Socrates as his mouthpiece in almost
all his major dialogues.
Plato
150 | 22 v Athenian DemocracyAn Experiment for the Ages

❖❖ In Gorgias, Socrates argues that even the great political figures
of the past—Miltiades, Themistocles, and Pericles—weren’t true
statesman because they had sought to gratify the Demos with ships
and walls and dockyards.
❖❖ Additionally, scenes in the Republic depict the weaknesses

of democracy by showing a boat whose crew fights among
themselves, plying the boat owner with drink and causing him to
lose consciousness. Meanwhile, the ideal steersman just looks up
at the stars and refuses to get engaged.
❖❖ There’s also an image of the Demos as a beast that cannot be

controlled by its trainer, who allows it to do whatever it wants,
whether good or bad. Plato’s hostility toward democracy has drawn
heavy criticism from modern scholars.
ARISTOTLE Aristotle
❖❖ Aristotle wasn’t a friend of
democracy either. He wasn’t an
Athenian, but he lived in Athens
and established his school of
philosophy there. In his Politics,
he uses the word dêmokratia
for the bad kind of rule by the
people, whereas he uses the
word politeia for the good kind
of popular rule.
❖❖ In the seventh book of his

Nicomachean Ethics, he argues
that citizens shouldn’t be
artisans, traders, or farmers. In
part, his argument is that leisure
is essential for developing virtue.
It follows that the independent
mind is a luxury that only the
wealthy can afford.

STRENGTH OF OPPOSITION
❖❖ There are always political dissenters in any society. The relevant

question here is: Was there a subversive element among the
Athenian population that would have welcomed the overthrow of
democracy and its replacement by an oligarchic constitution?
❖❖ The answer seems to be no, at least not until around the last
decade of the 5th century BC, when democracy was suspended in
411 and 404. However, it was never thereafter suspended until the
Macedonians effectively abolished it. At other times, that subversive
element probably limited its disgust for democracy to symposia and
to the philosophical schools, where anything could be said.
❖❖ The only critic of democracy who ever attracted much attention in

Athens was Socrates, and that was only because he was alleged
to have been instrumental in encouraging Critias and the Thirty
Tyrants to seize power. Largely, the impact of democracy’s critics
was minimal.
Suggested Reading
Monoson, Plato’s Democratic Entanglements.
Ober, “How to Criticize Democracy in Late-Fifth-Century and Fourth-Century
Athens.” Roberts, “The First Attacks on Athenian Democracy.”
Saxonhouse, Athenian Democracy.
1. Were Athens’s critics correct in their judgement of her democracy? Is it
reckless to trust the judgement of ordinary citizens?
2. How might Athens have improved its democracy?
152 | Lecture 22 v Ancient Critics of Athenian Democracy

23
Post-Athenian
Democracies
T his lecture traces the history of democracy

from the time of Athens’s loss of freedom
down to modern times. It won’t be an unbroken
history, but it does focus on the highlights
and talks about how democracy caught on as
essentially a new idea in the 17th century.
AFTER ATHENS
❖❖ There was a long gap between 322 BC, when democracy took
a nosedive throughout the Greek world, and the birth of liberal
democracy in modern times. However, there were some societies
that practiced something akin to democracy.
❖❖ The Battle of Chaeronea, which resulted in the defeat of Athens

and Thebes at the hands of Philip II of Macedon, signaled the death
of Greek freedom. The Greek states didn’t realize it at the time,
however, so they continued to agitate, but their efforts to regain their
freedom proved ineffectual.
❖❖ The author H. M. Jones has posited that democracy was actually

favored by monarchs in the Hellenistic period. This was the period
following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, when
Alexander’s empire was divided into three huge chunks, one based
in Macedon (modern-day northern Greece), another in Egypt, and
the third in Syria/Turkey.
❖❖ However, if there is some truth to that, it certainly wasn’t the same

kind of radical democracy that Athens had once practiced. No polis
in this period was allowed to have a foreign policy. Still, the Greek
city-states in the Hellenistic period could pass laws and run their
domestic affairs unsupervised.
ROMAN DEMOCRACY
❖❖ During the Roman Republic and even during the imperial period, the
Romans had a democracy of sorts, in the sense that ordinary people
had a say in the state. One of the problems for democracy under the
Romans, however, was that the citizen population was far too large
to meet as a single body.
❖❖ Roman territory covered not just Rome but the whole of the
peninsula of Italy in the 1st century BC. From 212 AD onward, by
a decree of Emperor Caracalla, the empire contained citizens from
Britannia in the northwest to the northern coast of Africa. The empire
154 | Lecture 23 v Post-Athenian Democracies

also stretched to the borders of Germany in the north and Armenia
in the east. Citizens living in far-reaching areas likely had little or no
democratic voice.
❖❖ There were three types of assemblies in Rome. The most important

was the centuriate assembly, which met to elect the highest
magistrates and to decide whether or not to declare war. It consisted
of 193 centuries, into which the whole citizen body was divided. Each
century cast only one vote. In effect, the centuries were distributed
according to wealth.
❖❖ Over half of the 193 were reserved for the wealthiest, whereas
the poor were squeezed into just four. To make matters still less
democratic, the centuries reserved for the wealthy voted first. Once
a majority of centuries had voted either in favor or in opposition to
the proposal, the election was suspended. Very often, therefore, the
poor didn’t ever get the chance to cast their vote.
LATER DEVELOPMENTS
❖❖ The oldest legislature that is still in existence is the Icelandic Althing,

founded in 930 AD. Though at first only the most powerful men in
the land were permitted to address it, eventually commoners were
permitted to attend.
❖❖ The Magna Carta, which King John of England signed in 1215 under
pressure from his barons, is often regarded as the founding charter
of Western democracy. In fact, it merely limited the power of the king
in relation to the barons. However, the early American colonists took
the Magna Carta as a founding charter for their claim to liberty from
the British crown. It remains a document of immense importance in
establishing the rights of the individual over arbitrary authority.
❖❖ In 1293, something akin to democracy was established in northern

Italy, in the city of Florence. Rich merchants, whose prosperity derived
from wool and a thriving international banking industry, established
what they called a republic as the result of a bloodless coup.

King John signing the Magna Carta
❖❖ The Ordinances of Justice enfranchised all males who owned property,

paid taxes, and had matriculated from one of the 12 guilds; the most
important guild was comprised of wool merchants. As a result, some
5,000 Florentines acquired the right to vote, to be elected by lot to the
Signoria (Council), and to hold the highest office in the land. It was
under this system of government that the Renaissance took root and
flourished in Florence in the 14th and 15th centuries.
THE EXECUTION OF KING CHARLES I
❖❖ Democracy didn’t experience a true rebirth anywhere in Europe

until the 17th century. Its first appearance was in England in the time
of the war fought between the Cavaliers, the supporters of King
Charles I, and the Roundheads, the supporters of Parliament, under
Oliver Cromwell.

❖❖ Many thousands of people died
in this war, including the king, who
was executed in 1649. Parliament
now acquired many of the powers
that had previously belonged to the
king, even though England remained
a monarchy with the accession of
Charles II.
❖❖ A generation later, the so-called

Glorious Revolution led to the
overthrow of the Catholic king James
II in favor of William, prince of Orange,
and Mary, James’s daughter, both of
whom were Protestants. Once again,
the monarchy lost ground. Some
would claim that it was in 1688, the King Charles I
year of the Glorious Revolution, that
parliamentary democracy was born.
The following year, Parliament passed the country’s Bill of Rights,
which established regular elections and guaranteed freedom of
speech. This was one of the inspirations for the American Bill of
Rights, including the right to bear arms.
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
❖❖ Once the American colonists had won their independence from

the British in 1783, their first task was to establish a constitution to
replace the role of the British Parliament. This they achieved in 1789.
The overthrow of a monarchic system of government that had been
favored by the aristocracy led to a desire to establish a democracy.
❖❖ The Founding Fathers were more influenced by the Roman

republican system of government than they were by Athenian
democracy. Regardless, it’s still instructive to compare the American
and Athenian systems. According to both systems, government is
the people and government exists to serve the people.

❖❖ One very big difference between the two democracies, however,
is the tension between the federal government and states’ rights
in the American system. No such tension existed in the Athenian
democracy because Attica wasn’t divided into states. Additionally,
Athenian democracy didn’t struggle with what many Americans
see as a serious contradiction between the popular vote and the
Electoral College. There was only the popular vote.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
❖❖ The French Revolution in 1789 swept away the country’s monarchy

and the feudal system that had supported it. It established in its
place a republic. The seeds of the revolution were sown when King
Louis XVI permitted the summoning of an assembly known as the
Estates General for the first time since 1614.
❖❖ There were three estates, the upper two reserved for the aristocracy
and clergy and the third for the commoners. The problem was that
the commoners represented 98 percent of the population, and the
other two estates could easily outvote them.
❖❖ The third estate broke away from the other two and set itself up as
the National Assembly. Rioting followed, along with the storming of
the Bastille, the event that marked the beginning of the revolution.
During the 10-month Reign of Terror in 1793–1794, the guillotine
executed thousands.
❖❖ Yet it was the French Revolution that established the principles of

liberty, fraternity, and equality, and which, more than any other event,
set Western Europe on the path of liberal democracy. A further step
toward democracy was taken in the year 1848, which saw a wave
of political uprisings throughout Europe in support of a plethora of
rights, such as freedom of the press and freedom of assembly.
OTHER MOVEMENTS
❖❖ In Britain, the so-called Great Reform Act of 1832 nearly doubled

the electorate from 366,000 to over 650,000. Still, only those owning

property—about 18 percent of adult males—had the right to vote.
Women, as well as most of the working classes, were still excluded,
and there was no secret ballot.
❖❖ In 1838, Chartists, who mainly came from the working class, drew up
a charter calling for six democratic reforms. One reform was voting
rights for non-property-owning men. The petition was presented to
Parliament, but rejected.
❖❖ It wasn’t until 1918 that all men obtained the vote in Britain, whereas
women had to wait 10 more years until all of them could vote. In the
United States, the 15th Amendment first gave non-white men the
right to vote in 1870. The 19th Amendment gave women the right to
vote in 1920.
MODERN JUDGMENTS
❖❖ From the 17th century onwards, Athenian democracy has had at

best a mixed reception among both theorists and revolutionaries.
The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes was a virulent critic. John
Locke, who advocated the entitlement of the individual to life, liberty,
and property, was equally dismissive of the common man.
❖❖ The Federalists were no lovers of the common man either. In the ninth
of the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton wrote, “It is impossible
to read the history of the petty republics of Greece … without feeling
sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they
were continually agitated.” To sum up, most arguments against
Athenian democracy take the view that participatory democracy is
always likely to create unruliness and chaos.
❖❖ There is, however, another intellectual tradition of venerating

Athenian democracy and seeking to copy it. George Grote, author
of a 12-volume history of ancient Greece, wrote:
Democracy in Grecian antiquity possessed the privilege, not

only of kindling an earnest and unanimous attachment to the
constitution in the bosoms of the citizens, but also of creating

an energy of public and private action such as could never be
obtained under an oligarchy.
❖❖ Contemporary historians such as Donald Kagan and Cynthia Farrar

have also written praise of Athenian democracy. This praise of
Athenian democracy remains on the theoretical level. Given the size
of modern democracies, it’s virtually inconceivable that anything on
Athenian lines could be introduced.
THE ATHENIANS AND AMERICA
❖❖ Four basic points will wrap up this lecture. First, though other parts
of the world than Greece had democratic tendencies, nowhere else
featured anything remotely like the degree of power that was vested
in the ordinary man.
❖❖ Second, there are those who claim that Athenian democracy wasn’t
really a democracy because women and slaves were excluded.
However, women in the United States didn’t acquire the right to vote
until 1920, and America can hardly cast the first stone regarding
slavery. Slaves in the United States weren’t freed until the 1860s,
and the civil rights movement took place a century later.
❖❖ Third, Athens was by no means the only democracy in Greek world.

However, Athenians were far more politically engaged than people
in other groups that practiced democracy.
❖❖ Fourth, the American democracy is not the heir of the Athenian

system of government. No present-day democracy is. Athenian
democracy was an evolutionary dead end, at least as far as its
practical application is concerned. As its echoes into the present
show, however, it wasn’t a cultural dead end.

Suggested Reading
Roberts, “Athenian Democracy in the Age of Revolutions.”
Robinson, The First Democracies.
1. Which democracy, past or present, comes closest to replicating Athenian
democracy?
2. Could American democracy be improved in any way?

24
Democracy Today,
Democracy Tomorrow
I t’s impossible to talk about Athenian

democracy without glancing at the state
of modern democracies. That’s the goal of
this concluding lecture.
MODERN DEMOCRACIES
❖❖ Well over half the countries in the world today are categorized as
democracies. It may be tempting to think of a future world full of
peacefully coexisting democracies, but for multiple reasons, we
shouldn’t hold our breath. To begin with, many of the countries that call
themselves democracies today simply aren’t democracies. Examples
include the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic Republic of
the Congo.
❖❖ Leaving aside the modern problem of defining what is and isn’t a

democracy, virtually no democracy exists today on the model of
Athenian democracy. The single exception is the Landsgemeinde
(cantonal assemblies) that operate in Switzerland. Majority rule
operates in a system of direct democracy, and voting by all eligible
citizens takes place by a show of hands.
❖❖ An important question is: What are the criteria by which democracy

today should be judged? There are various indexes, but any society
that claims to be democratic should hold free and fair elections,
permit freedom of expression, protect human rights, and observe
rule of law.
❖❖ The Economist Intelligence Unit, which is a wing of the Economist

magazine, uses a variety of other criteria. These include economic
prosperity, gender equality, education, and environmental viability.
Democracy is a gradient, and even those societies that would
qualify as democracies by the aforementioned criteria are not all
equally democratic.
❖❖ Incidentally, the Economist Intelligence Unit downgraded the

United States to a “flawed democracy” in January 2017, reflecting
the drop in confidence in government institutions by US citizens.
In fact, confidence in the US government has been declining since
the 1960s, according to Pew Research. In addition, economic
inequality has been on the rise during the same period, according to
Goldman Sachs.

DEMOCRACY’S SUPPORTERS
❖❖ In the contemporary world, several aspects of society support

democracy. For example, the internet permits free flow of information,
which is bad news for totalitarian regimes.
❖❖ Another factor is social media, which permits people to communicate

easily with one another. A fearless free press that is not under
state control and is not cowed by intimidation is a valuable ally of
democracy, as are political satirists.
DEMOCRACY’S ENEMIES
❖❖ Democracy also faces a list of enemies, including apathy and a sense

of disenfranchisement among the electorate. Another enemy is the
domination of technocrats, who are able to exercise tremendous
influence through gifts, services, and influence of various kinds.
❖❖ Cyber attacks can cause interference in democratic process,

whether to discredit or promote a candidate or to hack into the
electoral roll. This is destructive to confidence in democracy itself,
whether or not it affects the outcome of an election.
❖❖ The extravagant cost of funding political campaigns severely limits

the pool of aspirants to political office. Another problem is the
dissemination of so-called alternative facts, designed to make it
impossible to determine the truth, coupled with the spread of so-
called fake news via the internet.
❖❖ Two more threats come from political leaders undermining the

freedom of the press and subverting freedom of expression. Another
attacker is religious extremism—bigotry, in short—which seeks to
destroy civil society and forces citizens to adopt security measures
that undermine the concept of a free society.
❖❖ Another problem is increasing polarization within the electorate.

A democracy can only function if there is some consensus both
between opposing parties and among the population overall. A final
164 | Lecture 24 v Democracy Today, Democracy Tomorrow

threat is the appearance of a demagogue consumed with a desire
for fame, who, to quote Abraham Lincoln, “scorns to tread in the
footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious.”
VITAL SIGNS
❖❖ The health of democracy changes almost from day to day. The

tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was a hopeful sign, as was
the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991. The 2010–2012 uprisings
in the Middle East and North Africa known as the Arab Spring were
pro-democracy sparks as well, but the follow-through, especially in
the Middle East, has been discouraging.
❖❖ The Arab Spring was originally billed as a great moment for freedom
and human rights; it saw popular uprisings in favor of democracy in
Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Bahrain. However, it faded two years
later, and of all those countries, only Tunisia still holds on to democracy.

❖❖ Another hopeful sign is grassroots involvement in the form of popular
protest, petitions, and marches. Though cynics might question how
much this form of protest achieves, it indicates that democracy is in
a good state of health.
❖❖ The vigor of the American press is a good sign as well. Finally, the
separation of powers—legislative, judicial, and executive—that
lies at the heart of America’s government is the country’s ultimate
safeguard of its democracy.
THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY
❖❖ A pertinent question is whether or not democracy is fully equipped to

deal with the urgent issues of modern times. For example, will it be
able to withstand the threat of terrorism—not just the acts themselves,
but also the measures to counter them that increase surveillance?
❖❖ Other questions arise, too: Will government by the people, of the

people, and for the people be able to compete effectively with more
authoritarian regimes? Will it be able to deliver the best outcomes
for its citizens? Will it be able to address and overcome huge
demographic shifts, climate change, the depletion of our natural
resources, and so on?
❖❖ To close, keep in mind that Athenian democracy was a bold

experiment based on the belief in the rationality and good sense of
the ordinary man. Modern Western democracy is an equally bold
experiment based on the belief in the rationality and good sense
of the ordinary woman and man. Athenian democracy was also a
fragile experiment—just as American democracy is, and indeed, just
as any democracy is.
166 | Lecture 24 v Democracy Today, Democracy Tomorrow

Suggested Reading
Dunn, Democracy.
Finley, Democracy Ancient and Modern.
Hansen, The Tradition of Ancient Greek Democracy and Its Importance for
Modern Democracy.
Keane, The Life and Death of Democracy.
Morris and Raaflaub, Democracy 2500.
1. Should we admire or condemn Athenian democracy?
2. How (if at all) does the study of Athenian democracy assist us in

understanding contemporary democracies?

Bibliography
Anderson, G. The Athenian Experiment: Building an Imagined Political

Community in Ancient Attica, 508–490 BC. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 2003. Examines the consequences of Cleisthenes’ reforms for religion,
urbanization, and the unification of Attica.
Aristophanes. Acharnians, Knights, and Peace. Translated and with theatrical

commentary by Michael Ewans. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
2011. The plays Acharnians and Knights shed considerable insight into
Athenian democracy.
Aristotle. The Athenian Constitution. Translated with introduction and notes

by P. J. Rhodes. Penguin Classics, 1984. Very useful original source book for
our understanding of Athenian democracy.
Carey, C. Democracy in Classical Athens. 2nd ed. London: Bloomsbury, 2017.

Basic introduction to the topic that lays out the essential facts with admirable
clarity. Probably the first book to read.
Cartledge, P.A. Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2009. A number of brief essays on key themes
relating to Athenian democracy.
———. Aristophanes and His Theatre of the Absurd. Bristol Classical

Press: London, 1990. Revised 1999. Good, basic introduction to the comic
playwright par excellence of democratic Athens.
———. Democracy: A Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. A masterly

and wide-ranging investigation by a foremost scholar of Greek democracy.
168 | Bibliography
Christ, M. R. The Bad Citizen in Classical Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006. Refreshingly unsentimental approach to Athenian
democracy, highlighting the prominence cowards, draft-dodgers, tax-evaders, etc.
———. The Limits of Altruism in Democratic Athens. New York: Cambridge

University Press, 2012. Exposes the limited degree to which the Athenians
helped others and each other.
Connor, W. R. Thucydides. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Penetrating analysis that proceeds book by book through Thucydides’s History.
Davies, J. K. Democracy and Classical Greece. London: Fontana, 1978.

Excellent general background on the period from 478 to 330 BCE.
De Romilly, J. Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell,

1963. A standard work, which still bristles with insights.
Farrar, C. The Origins of Democratic Thinking: The Invention of Politics in

Classical Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Illuminating
history of political ideas.
Finley, M. I. Democracy Ancient and Modern. 3rd edition. Originally published

in 1973. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1996. Provocative and
insightful. Takes as its starting point the claim that understanding modern and
ancient democracy helps us understand both better. A first-rate read.
Forrest, W. G. The Emergence of Greek Democracy: The Character of

Greek Politics, 800–400 BC. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1966. Well-
illustrated and full of insights, despite being dated.
Forsdyke, S. Exile, Ostracism, and Democracy: The Politics of Expulsion in

Ancient Greece. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005.
Thorough and up-to-date investigation of the practice of ostracism and its
significance in democratic Athens.

Garland, R. S. J. Celebrity in Antiquity: From Media Tarts to Tabloid Queens
London: Duckworth & Co., 2006. A light-hearted survey of some of the most
outrageous attention seekers in the ancient world.
———. The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the Graeco-
Roman World. 2nd ed. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co, 2010. Investigation of
the social and religious consequences of deformity and disability.
———. The Piraeus. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 1987. Reprinted with
bibliography added 2001. The history of the port city and its people.
Hamel, D. The Battle of Arginusae: Victory at Sea and its Tragic Aftermath in the
Final Years of the Peloponnesian War. Lively narrative of one of an Athenian
victory that turned into a political disaster. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2015.
Hansen, M. H. Eisangelia: The Sovereignty of the People’s Court in Athens

in the Fourth Century and the Impeachment of Generals and Politicians.
Odense: Odense University Press, 1975. Definitive study of Athens’s court
system in the late Classical period.
———. The Athenian Assembly in the Age of Demosthenes. New enlarged

edition. Bristol, 1999. Groundbreaking study of fourth century BCE democracy
that addresses numerous basic questions about its subject. Very accessible.
———, ed. The Tradition of Ancient Greek Democracy and its Importance
for Modern Democracy. Copenhagen, 2005. Valuable comparative exercise
looking at Greek democracy’s impact.
Hanson, V. D. The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece.

New York: Alfred A. Kopf, 1989. Captures the experience of hoplite warfare.
Hanson, V. D. and J. Heath. Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical

Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom. New York: The Free
Press, 1998. Though as its title suggests, this book’s focus is elsewhere, it
demonstrates with passion and verve the value of studying any classically
oriented topic including democracy.
170 | Bibliography
Herman, G. Morality and Behaviour in Democratic Athens: A Social History.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Argues, somewhat contentiously,
that Athens practiced altruism and was a remarkably peaceful society. Some
might conclude this is an overly optimistic view of Athenian society.
———, ed. Stability and Crisis in the Athenian Democracy. Stuttgart: Historia
Einzelschrift, 2011. Provocative and challenging set of essays, not all of
them convincing, assessing the achievements and weaknesses of Athenian
democracy.
Hornblower, S. Thucydides. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 1987. The

chapter entitled “The Speeches” addresses the question as to what extent
Thucydides’s speeches are idiosyncratic and to what extent authentic.
Isakhan, B. and S. Stockwell, eds. The Secret History of Democracy. New

York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Collection of essays by various scholars that
argues democracy existed throughout history, notably in Asia and during the
Middle Ages.
Jones, A. H. M. Athenian Democracy. Still an important book, despite its

claim that slavery wasn’t essential to Athenian democracy. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1957.
Kagan, D. Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy. New York: Free
Press, 1991. Very readable and lively, a survey of “the golden age of Athens”
intended for the general reader.
———. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition. Ithaca and
London: Cornell University Press, 1981. Narrative of the Sicilian expedition,
underscoring the connection between domestic politics and foreign policy.
———. Thucydides: The Reinvention of History. New York,: Viking 2009.

A subtle and penetrating assessment of Thucydides which address such
questions as whether A. was a true democracy under Pericles, who was
responsible for the failure of the Sicilian Expedition, etc.

Kagan, D. and G. F. Viggiano, eds. Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient
Greece. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013. Stimulating collection of
essays that place hoplite warfare in its social and political context.
Keane, J. The Life and Death of Democracy. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.,
2009. Traces the changing fortunes and character of democracy from Athens
to the present day. A compulsive and unnerving read.
Krentz, P. The Thirty at Athens. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1982.
Straightforward account of one of the bloodiest episodes in Athenian history.
Lang, M. Ostraka. Princeton: Athenian Agora, 1990. A brief pamphlet, but

informative and well illustrated.
Lévêque, P. and P. Vidal-Naquet. Cleisthenes the Athenian. Edited by D.

A. Curtis. New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1996. Influential interpretation of
the philosophical and political background to Cleisthenes’s reforms and its
creation of a sense of civic space.
Low, P., ed. The Athenian Empire. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
2008. Very valuable collection of essays by leading scholars covering a wide
range of aspects of this central topic.
Ma, J., N. Papazarkadas, and R. Parker. Interpreting the Athenian Empire.

London: Duckworth & Co., 2009. Particularly recommend is Ma’s essay, “Did
the Athenian Empire Promote Democracy?”
Missiou, A. Literacy and Democracy in Fifth-Century Athens. Cambridge

and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Explores the connection
between democracy and literacy, and argues that the level of literacy was
higher than is often assumed.
Monoson, S. Plato’s Democratic Entanglements: Athenian Politics and

the Practice of Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Challenges the orthodox viewpoint that Plato was anti-democratic.
172 | Bibliography
Morris, I., and K.A. Raaflaub, eds. Democracy 2500: Questions and
Challenges. Atlanta: American Philological Association, 1996.
Nippel, W. Ancient and Modern Democracy: Two Concepts of Liberty?

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. This offers a history of
democratic practice through the ages up until the present day, ending with an
essay, “Is Athens Still a Standard?”
Ober, J. Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical

Athens. Princeton University Press: Princeton, 2008. Argues forcefully for
the value of democracy by examining the case of Athens, emphasizing the
crucial role played by shared knowledge. Not an easy read, being spiced with
a lot of modern theory, but enlightening.
———. Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens. Princeton: Princeton University

Press 1989. One of the most influential books on Athenian democracy to
appear in the past 25 years.
———. Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular

Rule. Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1998.
———. The Athenian Revolution: Essays on Greek Democracy and Political

Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1996. A collection of essays
that take as their starting point the democratic revolution in 508/7 BC.
Ober, J., and C. Hedrick, eds. Demokratia: A Conversation on Democracies,

Ancient and Modern. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. Essays on
law, equality, civil society, and education, which constantly connect with the
present day.
O’Neil, J. L. The Origins and Development of Ancient Greek Democracy.

Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995. Useful outline of the development
of democracy from its beginnings down to the Hellenistic period.

Osborne, R. Athens and Athenian Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press 2010. Rather technical account, but there are important
and innovative essays on slavery, law, women, etc., in relation to democracy.
Uses art and archeology to build its case. Especially recommended is chapter
2, “Athenian Democracy: Something to Celebrate?”
Ostwald, M. From Popular Sovereignty to the Rule of Law: Law, Society and
Politics in Fifth-Century Athens. California and London 1986.
———. Nomos and the Beginnings of the Athenian Democracy. Oxford, 1969.
Podlecki, A. Pericles and His Circle. London and New York, 1998.
Price, J. J. Thucydides and Internal War. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2001.
Pritchard, D. Sport, Democracy, and War in Classical Athens. Cambridge, 2013.
———, ed. War, Democracy and Culture in Classical Athens. Cambridge, 2010.
Raaflaub, K. A., J. Ober, and R. Wallace, with C. Farrar and P. Cartledge.

Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece. Berkeley, 2007.
Rhodes, P. J. A History of the Classical World, 478–323 BC. 2nd ed. Oxford,
2010. Detailed narrative survey.
———, ed. Athenian Democracy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Readings on

the Ancient World. 2004. Arguably one of the best collection of essays on
Athenian democracy.
———. The Athenian Boule. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. Exhaustive

study of a central feature of Athenian democracy.
Roberts, J. T. Athens on Trial: The Anti-Democratic Tradition in Western

Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. Wide-ranging discussion
of Athenian democracy and its critics from antiquity to the present day.
174 | Bibliography
Robinson, E. W. Democracy Beyond Athens: Popular Government in the
Greek Classical Age. Stuttgart 1997. Rather detailed, but a salutary reminder
that democracy in ancient Greece was not confined to Athens.
Rodewald, C. Democracy: Ideas and Realities. London and Toronto: Dent,

1974. Useful collection of ancient sources on Greek democracy.
Rusten, J. S., ed. Thucydides. Excellent collection of essays.
Salkever, S., ed. Ancient Greek Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2009. Contains several important lectures on Athenian
democracy.
Salmons, L. J. II, ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Pericles.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Excellent collection of essays
covering many aspects of Athens in the fifth-century.
———. What’s Wrong With Democracy? From Athenian Practice to American

Worship. California, 2004. Provocative and stimulating comparison between
Athenian and American democracy.
Saxonhouse, A. W. Athenian Democracy: Modern Mythmakers and Ancient

Theorists. Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame, 1996.
Assesses what Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle thought about
Athenian democracy.
———. Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2006. Penetrating analysis of limits of freedom
of speech in ancient Athens, with reference to the trial of Socrates. Of
considerable relevance to current discussions about the First Amendment.
Sealey, R. Athenian Republic: Democracy or the Rule of Law? University

Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1987. Argues that the
Athenian governmental system developed gradually over time toward rule of
law rather than democracy.

Shear, J. L. Polis and Revolution: Responding to Oligarchy in Classical
Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Investigation of the
rise of oligarchy in the last years of the 5th century BC.
Sidwell, K. Aristophanes the Democrat: The Politics of Satirical Comedy

during the Peloponnesian War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2009. Provocative interpretation of Aristophanes’s political stance.
Sinclair, R. K. Democracy and Participation in Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1988. Very good introduction to practical issues relating to
the democracy.
Stone, I. F. The Trial of Socrates. London, 1988. Provocative but stimulating

examination of Athenian democracy with charges leveled against it of
indulging in “totalitarianism” and “terrorism.”
Teegarden, D. Death to Tyrants: Ancient Greek Democracy and the Struggle

Against Tyranny. Princeton University Press: Princeton, 2014.
Vlassopoulos, K. Politics: Antiquity and its Legacy. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2009. Argues for the value of understanding ancient politics as a way
to better understand modern political thought and practice.
Whitehead, D. The Demes of Attica, 508/7–ca. 250 BC: A Political and Social
Study. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Excellent study of the
townships that are often regarded as the building blocks of Athenian democracy.
Wilson, E. The Death of Socrates: Hero, Villain, Chatterbox, Saint. Cambridge,

MA, 2007.
Wood, E. M. Peasant-Citizen and Slave: The Foundations of Athenian

Democracy. London: Verso, 1988. Focuses on the rural citizen and his
connection with democracy. Though written by a non-classicist, the author
has a secure grasp of political and economic theory and makes a very
important contribution.
176 | Bibliography
Yunis, H. Taming Democracy: Models of Political Rhetoric in Classical
Athens. Ithaca, NY, 1997.
Ziolkowski, J. E. Thucydides and the Tradition of Funeral Speeches at Athens.

Salem, NH: Ayer Company, 1985. Investigation of accuracy of the speeches
in Thucydides, with particular attention to Pericles’s funeral speech.

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Gain insight into the story of Greek democracy and discover what lessons it Topic Subtopic

offers us today. History Ancient History

“Passionate, erudite, living legend lecturers. Academia’s

“A serious force in American education.” Professor Robert Garland

Robert Garland is the Roy D. and Margaret B. Wooster

THE GREAT COURSES ®

Course No. 3836 © 2018 The Teaching Company. PB3836A

THE GREAT COURSES

Copyright © The Teaching Company, 2018

Printed in the United States of America

This book is in copyright. All rights reserved.

R obert Garland is the Roy D. and Margaret B. Wooster Professor of

Athenian Democracy: An Experiment for the Ages | i

Professor Garland’s research focuses on the social, religious, political, and

Professor Garland’s other Great Courses are Greece and Rome: An

Athenian Democracy: An Experiment for the Ages | iii

Image Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Athenian Democracy: An Experiment for the Ages | v

T he democratic revolution that Athens underwent in the 5th century BC

Athenian Democracy: An Experiment for the Ages | 1

Athens’s achievement in this period is all the more remarkable in light

At the heart of Athenian democracy lie two profound contradictions, however.

Athenian Democracy: An Experiment for the Ages | 3

T he system of government that the Athenians

❖❖ Athenian democracy had both a political and a legal base. The

❖❖ Athenian democracy invested confidence in the ordinary, unqualified,

❖❖ The Athenians didn’t believe in redistribution of wealth. Their

Athenian Democracy: An Experiment for the Ages | 5

❖❖ Athenian democracy featured a belief in the common good. The

❖❖ Athens featured many outlets for competiveness. For example,

❖❖ Athens had a strong emphasis on religion. The Athenian Demos

6 | Lecture 1 v Why Athenian Democracy Matters

❖❖ The experiment was not ideologically driven. People didn’t get on

❖❖ The word democracy is by no means a straightforward term. It implies

Athenian Democracy: An Experiment for the Ages | 7

❖❖ The Greek word dêmokratia, which means “people power,” is equally

ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY’S CENTRAL PARADOX

❖❖ From a modern perspective, Athenian democracy featured three

❖❖ The second anomaly is that women had no political or legal identity.

❖❖ Third, the Athenians ran an empire that subjugated their fellow

❖❖ No ancient democratic theorist has left us an explanation of what

8 | Lecture 1 v Why Athenian Democracy Matters

❖❖ One of our earliest sources is Solon, a political, economic, and

❖❖ Next was Herodotus, a historian from Halicarnassus in modern-day

❖❖ Another important source was Thucydides, often regarded as the

❖❖ When Thucydides’s account breaks off in 411, it’s picked up by a

❖❖ There’s also a work called The Old Oligarch, a political pamphlet

❖❖ Next, there’s the Constitution of the Athenians, the Athenaiôn Politeia,

Athenian Democracy: An Experiment for the Ages | 9

❖❖ Other sources include political speeches,

CONTRASTS WITH MODERN WESTERN DEMOCRACY

❖❖ Athenian democracy has some notable contrasts with modern

❖❖ Third, there was no government and opposition. This meant every

❖❖ Fourth, there were no professional politicians. There were just men

10 | Lecture 1 v Why Athenian Democracy Matters

❖❖ Sixth, there was no accountability in the Assembly. If a person

❖❖ Seventh, there were no select committees and no reliance on

2. Can democracy be defined?

Athenian Democracy: An Experiment for the Ages | 11

A thens wasn’t the only polis or city-state

❖❖ The earliest evidence of democratic

❖❖ Both in the Iliad and in the Odyssey, we

❖❖ It’s the first example of democracy in action in Western literature,

THE SECOND WARTIME ASSEMBLY